The Exchequer in the twelfth century

I

4 '™

THE EXCHEQUER IN
THE TWELFTH CENTURY

/

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK

TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

THE EXCHEQUER

IN THE

TWELFTH CENTURY

THE FORD LECTURES

DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1911

By REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A., LL.D.

KEEPER OF THE ARCHIVES
AND FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1912

P7

PREFACE

Ten years ago I gave a course of lectures on
the Dialogus de Scaccario, and the book interested
me so much that I determined to remodel mv
materials so as to form a treatise on the subject.
My preparations, however, went on slowly, and it
was not until I retired from College work in the
summer of 191 o that I had leisure to advance them
ver}^ much. My election as Ford's Lecturer in
English History, in November of that year, gave
me the opportunity of planning in a different
form the book which I had contemplated. The
form was necessarily that of a course of lectures ;
but the subject was not the Dialogue but the
Exchequer itself. I have printed the lectures sub-
stantially as they were delivered in last October
and November ; but I have enlarged the introduc-
tion to the first lecture into a separate chapter,
and I have added a supplementary lecture, which,
though prepared, there was not time to dehver.
Hence the six lectures now appear as eight
chapters.

The form of a lecture will explain and partly
excuse the limitations and defects of the work.
In a lecture a certain amount of repetition is
unavoidable : it is necessary also to avoid

vi PREFACE

obscurity of statement; one must not introduce
reserves and qualifications overmuch. I have
no doubt that I have made many rash assertions
and not a few technical mistakes. But I have
sought before all things to be plain and free from
ambiguity in expression. It has also resulted
that a great deal of illustrative detail has been
omitted. Part of this has indeed been supplied
by means of notes. But a large area has been
designedly left untouched. I have considered the
Exchequer as a machine at work and have tried
to explain how it worked. This was all that I
could attempt within the limitations of a short
course. The other side of the subject, the sources
from which the payments came, I have treated
summarily. To have entiered at all usefully into
such matters as the assessment of Danegeld or of
scutage would have required an apparatus of
detailed calculations which could not practically
have been given in lecture ; and it would besides
have distracted attention from my main subject.
Confining myself in principle to the twelfth
century, while I have briefly indicated the con-
tinuity of various ofiices down to modern times,
I have avoided saying anything of the more com-
plicated system of controlling the business of
the Exchequer which arose when the practice of
enrolling the Chancery records led to the making
of estreats and counterwrits, or of the specializa-
tion of accounts which began under Edward I.

PREFACE vii

Nor have I entered upon the wide field occupied by
the remembrancers in subsequent times, though
I have given reason for believing that their offices
were already in existence. Until the memoranda
rolls are accessible in print it will hardly be possible
to survey with profit the work which fell to the
remembrancers' departments.

It will prevent misunderstanding if I mention
that in my frequent quotations from the Dialogue
I never profess to give a strict translation. I
render freely and usually abridge. My obUgations
to the editors of the Oxford edition of that work
are, I hope, sufficiently implied in what I have
said of it in my opening chapter, which also
explains the nature of my indebtedness to other
writers. But I should like to thank Messrs.
C. G; Crump, Charles Johnson, and C. Hilary
Jenkinson, of the Public Record Office, for their
extreme kindness in answering questions which
I addressed to them at various times. Had I
ventured to ask any of them to look over my
proof sheets, I am sure the text would have been
freed from many errors. Nor should I omit to
express my gratitude to the Secretary to the
Delegates of the Clarendon Press for the readiness
with which he arranged for my convenience that
my lectures should all be in print before they
were dehvered.

R. L. P.

January 1912.

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CONTENTS

Preface

the

I. Texts and Commentaries.
The Pipe Rolls .
The Dialogus de Scaccario
The Black Book and the Red Book of

Exchequer
Modem Work upon the Exchequer Records

II. The Ancient Treasury
The King's Chamber .
The King's Revenue .
Modes of Payment
Account by Tallies
The Treasury at Winchester
The seat of Judicial and Financial Adminis-
tration

III. The Reckoning of the Exchequer
The use of the Abacus
Early Writers on the Subject
Adelard of Bath ....

English Students at Laon .
Possible Derivation of the Exchequer from

Laon

The Exchequer in Normandy
Blank Payments of English Origin
The Exchequer not derived from Sicily
Influence of Norman Administrators .

page

V

CONTENTS

•

page

IV.

The Treasury of Receipt .

. 70

Treasure and the Treasury .

. 70

Officials of the Receipt . .

. 72

The Assay .....

. . 76

Stipends of the Officials

• 79

The Money in use

. 82

Tallies

. 86

V.

The Exchequer Board

. 94

The Constitutio Domus Regis

• 94

The Exchequer ....

. 99

The Officers of the Exchequer

. 103

Rolls and Writs ....

. Ill

The Remembrancers .

. 116

Emoluments and Privileges of the (

)fficers . 122

VI.

The Sheriff's Account .

. 127

The Farm of the Shire

. 128

Form of Account

. 131

Loss of Revenue through Alienation c

>f Lands . 133

The Sheriff's Summons

. . 138

Order of Account

. 149

VII

The Great Roll of the Year

. 150

Pipes

. 150

The Exchequer Year .

. 152

Contents of the Roll .

. 154

Settled Allowances

. 155

Terrae Datae ....

. . 158

Casual Allowances

. 160

Receipts outside the Corpus Comits

LtUS . 165

The Balance ....

. 173

CONTENTS

XI

PAGE

VIII. The Exchequer and the King's Court . 174

Pleas held at the Exchequer • . . 174

Common Pleas 177

Final Concords 181

The Chancery 184

Archbishop Hubert Walter .... 187

Results of the Separation of the Chancery . 188

Index

191

TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES

The wealth of England in records for the earlier
middle ages — I speak of the time before the
thirteenth century — ^is unapproached by any other
country in Europe. It is not in our historians that
we claim a pre-eminence, though it was monks
from the British Isles who traced the models upon
which all the compilations of Prankish Annals
were founded. But no other country possesses
anything hke the mass of land charters such as
we have for the Anglo-Saxon period. No other
country has a survey such as that of our Domesday
Book. Abroad there are a few customals of par-
ticular lordships, such as the invaluable polyptych
of Irmino ; but for a survey on a great scale we
have to wait until the beginning of the fourteenth
century, when the Urbar or terrier of the Habsburg
lands was drawn up. In England almost the whole
country was minutely surveyed before William
the Conqueror had finished his reign. The Domes-
day survey, like a modern valuation return, was
compiled as a basis for taxation ; and it is in the
revenue department that our earUest official
records appear. The great annual rolls of the
Exchequer are nearly complete for the reign of

1376 R

2 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

Henry II and the time following, and one single
specimen is preserved from the reign of Henry I.
Here again there is no parallel abroad except
under the same dynasty in Normandy, where
however the rolls now preserved do not begin until
1180.

Our series of rolls, generally known by their
later name of Pipe Rolls, were the subject of
minute study by the learned and indefatigable
Thomas Madox, whose History and Antiquities of
the Exchequer, published in 1711,^ is never likely
to be superseded in these days of rapid and per-
functory work. But the texts themselves remained
unpublished until, thanks to the Record Commis-
sion, Joseph Hunter printed the four oldest rolls in
1833 and 1844, and one of the first year of Richard I
also in 1844. More recently a private society was
established for the purpose of continuing the
publication, and since 1884 (with an interval
between 1900 and 1904) this Pipe Roll Society
has issued 31 volumes, all but six of which are
devoted to the particular rolls from which it takes
its name. The fact that all these new materials
are now placed at our disposal is an incentive
to make the attempt to take a general survey of
the institution from which they proceed ; but it

1 My references are to the ence of those who use the

pages of this edition, but I edition of 1769. An italic

have cited also the chapter letter following the page indi-

and section for the conveni- cates a footnote.

I THE PIPE ROLLS 3

should be said at the outset that a comparison of
successive rolls, however valuable for the purpose
of discovering and ascertaining the succession to
lands and offices, does not serve substantially to
modify the conclusions as to the working of the
exchequer system which might be drawn from the
study of a couple of rolls.

Nor must it be supposed that the pipe rolls
profess to contain anything like a complete record
of the business which was transacted at the Ex-
chequer. In order to learn this we have to take
recourse to a work which is yet another instance
of the extraordinary abundance of our historical
materials and which is the envy of continental
students. The famous Dialogue concerning the
Exchequer was not merely written by one who was
himself treasurer, but it is written with such fullness
and lucidity of statement as to leave very few
matters, and those not of the first importance,
in obscurity. The author, Richard bishop of
London, set out to explain the system in which
he had been trained, and he succeeded to a degree
which we can hardly overpraise. That I may not
seem to exaggerate the merits of a work which
must necessarily be one of my leading authorities,
I will quote some sentences from Maitland, whose
judgement, here at any rate, will not be disparaged.

^ The book stands out as an unique book in the history
of medieval England, perhaps in the history of medieval

^ History of English Law, 1895, i. 140 f .
B 2

4 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES I

Europe. A high officer of state, the trusted counsellor
of a powerful king, undertakes to explain to all whom
it may concern the machinery of government. He will
not deal in generalities, he will condescend to minute
details. Perhaps his book was not meant for the general
public so much as for the numerous clerks who were
learning their business in the exchequer, but still that
such a book should be written, is one of the wonderful
things of Henry's wonderful reign. We may safely say
that it was not published without the king's licence, and
yet it exposes to the light of day many things which
kings and ministers are apt to treat as solemn mysteries
of state. We should know far more of the history of
government than will ever be known could we have a
Dialogue on the Exchequer from every century ; but we
have one only and it comes from the reign of Henry H.
Henry was so strong that he had nothing to conceal ; he
could stand criticism ; his will and pleasure if properly
explained to his subjects would appear as reasonable
and at any rate would not be resisted. And so his
treasurer expounded the course of proceedings in the
exchequer, the constitution of this financial board, its
writs and its rolls, the various sources of royal income,
the danegeld and the murder fine, the collection of the
debts due to the king, the treatment of his debtors, and,
coming to details, he described the chessboard and the
counters, the tallies, the scales, and the melting pot.
But for him, we should have known little of the administra-
tive and fiscal law of his time or of later times — ^for the
rolls of the exchequer sadly need a commentary — ^but as
it is, we may know much.

The authorship of the Dialogue is not now
disputed, but it was long obscured by several
confusions. Bishop Bale copied from the collections
of Nicholas Brigham an extract from the book

I THE DIALOGUE ON THE EXCHEQUER 5

relative to the author's lost work, the Tricolumnis,
and afterwards wrote, apparently as a guess, the
name of Gervase of Tilbury between the lines of
his manuscript.^ The conjecture was repeated as a
fact in his published Catalogue of British Writers,^
and was long accepted. But, as Madox pointed
out, Gervase the marshal of Burgundy under the
Emperor Otto IV was unquestionably a layman,
and the author of the Dialogue was as certainly
a clergyman.^ Gervase also wrote about twenty
years later than the time when the Dialogue was
composed. Another cause of confusion was that
the Dialogue was often read in late copies of the
Red Book or the Black Book of the Exchequer,
and hence passages from the Dialogue are quoted
as from the Red or Black Book.^ Possibly one
copy of this book belonged to Nicholas Ockham
in the time of Edward I and chanced to have his

1 Index Britanniae Scripto- * Selden cites it from lihro
rum, Oxford, 1902, p. 477. Ruh. Archiu. Scacc. : Titles of

2 Scriptorum illustrium ma- Honor, ii. 5, 2nd ed. 1631,
ioris Brytanni§ Catalogus, p. 687. Prynne, in his Aumm
Basel 1557, iii. 58 p. 250. Reginae, 1668, p. 4, says that

3 See the Dissertatio epi- it was ' stiled by most, The Red
stolaris addressed to lord Book of the Exchequer'. Sir
Halifax, prefixed to his edition Matthew Hale, in his Short
of the Dialogus at the end Treatise touching Sheriffs Ac-
of his History of the Ex- compts, 1683, p. 21, refers
chequer, pp. x, xi. The to * Gervasius Tilburiensis,
author of the Dialogue ex- or the black Book of the Ex-
pressly describes himself as chequer, written in the time.
a clergyman, ii. 26 p. 245. of H. 2'.

TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES

name written upon it ; anyhow lord chief justice
Coke refers to the Dialogue as by Ockham : ^ it is
not necessary to suppose that he was thinking of
the famous schoolman.^ Madox at last settled the
true authorship, which had, as he pointed out,^
been in fact clearly stated by Alexander Swerford,
the editor of the Red Book of the Exchequer in
the second quarter of the thirteenth century.^

Richard the Treasurer belonged to the most
characteristic official family of his time.^ His

1 * Ockam who wrote in
the raigne of Henry the
second : * Coke upon Little-
ton (First Institute), 1628,

P- 13.

2 Sir Henry Spelman in
his Glossarium archaiologicum
(3rd ed., 1687), cites the
Dialogue under the name of
Niger liber fiscalis (pp. 202 a,
331 «), Niger liber Scaccarii
(p. 229 h) and Ockamus qui
sub excessu Edouardi 2 floruit
(p, 331 h), as well as under
that of Gervase of Tilbury
(p. 502 a). Compare the Athe-
naeum, no. 3933 p. 331 b,
14 March 1903.

3 Dissertatio epistolaris, pp.
xi, xii. In the preface to his
Firma Burgi, 1726, § 10,
Madox mentions that Selden
learned from Agard on the
authority of Swerford that
the Dialogue was written ' by

Richard Bishop of London
(his name being Richard de
Beaumes) under Henrie I ' ;
so, even when Swerford's
words were vouched in evi-
dence, they were not correctly
understood.

4 * Ricardus Londoniensis
episcopus, licet in sui libelli
tractatu superius multa de
negotiis scaccarii digererit : *
Red Book of the Exchequer,
p. 4 (where the edition has
degererit). This is on fo. 47
of the manuscript j superius
refers back to the Dialogue,
which ends on fo. 46.

6 See the admirable account
of his life in Professor Felix
Liebermann's Einleitung in
den Dialogus de Scaccario,
Gottingen 1875, which has
served as the basis of all that
has been written since on the
subject.

I RICHARD THE TREASURER 7

great-uncle Roger bishop of Salisbury, a Norman
from Caen/ was chancellor and then justiciar
under Henry I. As justiciar, for long periods he
held the reins of the government of the country,^
and it was under him that the Exchequer was in-
stituted. His nephew, Nigel or Neal, was employed
in the business of the king's Court as early as
1126 or 1127,^ and in 1133 was made bishop of
Ely. When Stephen became king, Roger remained
justiciar, his son Richard was chancellor, and his
nephew treasurer. In 1139 the family suffered an
ecUpse, and Roger died the same year. Neal
recovered his bishopric in 1141, but though
actively engaged as a baron of the Exchequer, he
was never again treasurer.* His son Richard,
with whom we are more directly concerned, was
bom in 1130 or perhaps a little earlier, before his
father was in priest's orders, and was brought up
in the monastery of Ely. It is not known when
he entered the king's service ; it has been thought
that he was keeper of the seal : ^ but, apparently in
1158, bishop Neal bought the treasurership for him

1 William of Newburgh i. to think that he was ; but
6, in Chronicles of Stephen, the evidence he quotes only
Henry II, and Richard I, calls him baron, p. 142 b.
ed. R. Howlett, i (1884) 36. See Liebermann, p. 24 note 4

2 William of Malmesbury, and p. 33.

Gesta Regum, § 408, ed. ^ The clericus qui praeest

Stubbs, 1889, ii. 483 f. scriptorio : see Liebermann,

3 See below, p. 57. p. 33 n. 2. On this officer see
* Madox, p. 141, inclined below, pp. no f.

8 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

for £400.^ Meanwhile he advanced in ecclesiastical
preferments. By 11 69 he was archdeacon of Ely,
ten years later canon of St. Paul's, in 1184 dean
of Lincoln. Finally in 1189 he was made bishop
of London, and held the see with the treasurership
until his death in 1198.^

The Dialogue was written before he was dean or
bishop. The first book opens with the words, ' In
the twenty-third year of the reign of king Henry II,
while I sat at the window of the tower which is by
the river Thames,'^ on the east side of Westminster
Hall. This gives the year ending, according to the
Exchequer rule, at Michaelmas 1177. But later
on* the author mentions a provision made by
the king at Michaelmas 1178, so that either the
composition of the work was not finished until
after that date or else the passage is a later insertion.
In any case the work was completed before the
spring of 1179, for it mentions the division of
England for judicial purposes into six circuits, and

1 Richard of Ely, Historia seal on a charter granted by
Eliensis, in H. Wharton's him to the monks of Bee
Anglia sacra, i. 627, 1691. which is preserved among
I follow Dr. Liebermann for the muniments of the dean
the date. R. W. Eyton, in his and canons of St. George's
Court, Household, and Itine- chapel, Windsor (xi. G. 7).
rary of Henry II, 1878, p. 341, The legend is Pavlvs servvs
says ' 1 159 ', but gives no Cristi ihs.

reference. 3 .

2 The secreium of bishop " t*' 7 •
Richard appears as a counter- * i. 8 p. 200.

I BISHOP RICHARD AS AN AUTHORITY 9

before Whitsuntide ^ in that year the king altered
the number to four.^

Bishop Richard I believe to be a writer whose
statements may be accepted as absolutely trust-
worthy so far as his knowledge and experience of
the working of the Exchequer carry him. When
he tries to explain the origin and cause of many of
its practices he quite excusably goes wrong. A good
deal of ridicule has been poured upon him for
errors of this sort, and it has often been left to be
implied that he is almost equally open to suspicion
in regard to what he says of the system of his own
day. But the two things are quite independent.
I doubt whether every modem chancellor of the
Exchequer could give you an intelligible account
of the way in which a most important official,
the comptroller ^ and auditor-general, came to
perform two functions which are not necessarily,
nor indeed naturally, connected. As comptroller-
general of the Exchequer he or his representative
keeps the banking account of the Treasury and
signs the cheques : as auditor-general of pubHc
accounts he disallows any payment not authorized
by parliament. In the one capacity he descends

^ Eyton says on 10 April : bodies an old error, the word

p. 226. being supposed to be con-

2 Gesta Regis Henrici II, nected with accompt. The
ed. Stubbs, 1867, i. 238 f., cf. controller is really the con-
240. See Liebermann, p. 10. trarotulator, one who keeps a

3 This official spelling em- counter-roll.

10 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

from the old auditor of the Receipt of the Ex-
chequer; in the other, he takes over the duties
of the commissioners of public accounts, who
represent several offices of audit which can be
traced back to early times. The union of the two
offices was not completed until 1867 ; but I believe
that many persons well acquainted with public
affairs take for granted that a post of such high
responsibility, whose powers excite the admiration
of foreign observers, must be an ancient element
in the constitution, though its most important
functions were in fact first created in 1780.^ In
like manner the author of the Dialogue relates the
traditions current in the Exchequer, some of which
are not only unsupported but are contradicted by
known facts. But his mistakes as to the past do
not in the least affect the truth and accuracy of
his description of what he saw actually in practice
in his own time ; and the more closely we examine
his treatise the more reason we shall find to place
confidence in his statements.

The Dialogue was first published in 171 1 by
Thomas Madox as an appendix to his History and

^ The commissioners for 25 George III c. 52, they took

examining, taking, and stat- over the duties of the auditors

ing the public accounts were of the imprest, whose offices

appointed by the statute of were thereby abolished, and

20 George III c. 54, which were constituted commis-

was continued and some- sioners for auditing the pubHc

times amended annually until accounts.
1785, when by the statute of

I EDITIONS OF THE DIALOGUE ii

Antiquities of the Exchequer ; and his edition
professes to be taken from two Exchequer com-
pilations of the thirteenth century known as the
Black and the Red Books. But in the Dissertatio
epistolaris to lord Halifax, which is prefixed to the
edition, Madox explains that he began by causing
a transcript to be made of two more recent copies
in lord Somers's library. This transcript, with the
help of George Holmes, the deputy-keeper of the
records in the Tower, he himself collated with the
Black and Red Books ; and the result is that
what we have is a conflate text based upon two
late copies but adapted, as far as could be done,
to the earlier text of the Black Book,^ while the
earliest text of all, that of the Red Book, was only
used for the purpose of emendation and for supply-
ing the titles of the chapters which were absent
from the Black Book. Madox's text was reprinted
in 1870, with some corrections, by bishop Stubbs
in his Select Charters and other Illustrations of

^ The calendar in the Black date on which Easter was in-
Book has been assigned to serted in calendars, especially
1239 c>r 1250 on the ground in Gaul : see E. A. Loew,
that Easter Day is entered Die altesten Kalendarien aus
in it on 27 March : see the Monte Cassino, Munich 1908,
Catalogue of Manuscripts and p. 73. The text of the Dia-
other Objects in the Museum logus is believed to be in a
of the Public Record Office, different hand from the calen-
6th ed., 1909, p. 19. But no dar, and was probably written
argument can be drawn from not long before the middle
this. It was the conventional of the thirteenth century.

12 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES I

English Constitutional History, and I shall cite
the treatise by the pages of this edition because
it is in every one's hand.^ But a notable advance
in the critical treatment of the text was made by
Messrs. A. Hughes, C. G. Crump, and C. Johnson,
of the Public Record Office, who brought out a
new edition of the Dialogue at Oxford in 1902.'^
They produced their text strictly frorn three
manuscripts of the thirteenth century, the two
Exchequer books already mentioned and the
Cottonian manuscript, Cleopatra A. 16, in the
British Museum, which they have fully collated.^
Though the number of important new readings
which they have incorporated is not in fact very
large, they have performed the very real service
of placing before us the means of judging what
the manuscript evidence is, and they have supplied
an apparatus of extremely valuable notes. It is
however to be regretted that the form in which
the edition is printed is one that makes reference
to it difficult. The beginnings of the chapters
are not clearly marked, and the titles, which are
probably almost all original,^ are omitted. Still,

1 I use the fifth edition, Nigel, Treasurer of England
1884, the pages of which agree and Bishop of London.

with those of the eighth ^ ^s far as book ii. 18 :

edition, 1900. the rest is a fifteenth-century

2 De necessariis Observan- copy from the Red Book,
tiis Scaccarii Dialogus, com- ^ jhe editors hold a differ-
monly called Dialogus de ent opinion. They say, Intro-
Scaccario, by Richard, son of duction, p. 8, * The body of

I THE BLACK BOOK AND THE RED BOOK 13

for the critical study of the Dialogue this edition
is indispensable.^

A large amount of materials illustrative of the
work of the Exchequer is furnished by an important
compilation made by an official hand in the early
part of the thirteenth century. This is represented
by two volumes belonging to the king's remem-
brancer known as the Black Book and the Red Book.
The Black Book, sometimes called the Little Black
Book, must be carefully distinguished from the
Black Book of the Treasury of Receipt which
contains the Dialogue. The Little Black Book,

the treatise contains one refer-
ence to a chapter heading,
but examination will show
that if this is anything but
a gloss, it is a reference to
a division of chapters other
than that now existing.' The
reference in i. 10 p. 202 is to
a subject raised in i. 16 p. 208,
though it is true that the full
explanation of the matter in
question is not given until
the following chapter. But
this is by no means the only
reference. In i. 6 p. 188 and
ii. 9 p. 225 ' in titulo de
summonitionibus ' refers to
ii. I pp. 210 f . ; which in the
new edition, p. 109, bears
the title Ex quibus et qualiter
et ad quidfiunt summonitiones.
In ii. 4 p. 220 ' in titulo de

officio scriptoris thesaurarii '
refers to the section Quid ad
Scriptorem Thesaurarii in i. 5
pp. 185 ff. In i. 5 pp. 181,
183, and 186 * in agendis vice-
comitis ' may rouse a scruple ;
for the chapter De agendis
Vicecomitis muUipliciter is ii.
3, while the references are to
ii. 21 p. 241 and twice to ii. 27
p. 246. But it is to be noted
that the citations here are not
of a titulus but of a subject,
and De agendis Vicecomitis
describes the subject of the
whole of book ii. Cf . Lieber-
mann, p. 7.

1 I cite it as the Oxford
edition, and its component
parts as the Introduction
and the Notes to the Dia-
logus.

14 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

which was written in the time of John, gives
the best text of the Establishment of the King's
Household under Henry I, and it sets out the
chartae baronum or returns of services made by the
barons in 1166 with some miscellaneous documents.
There is nothing to show by whom it was compiled,
but it is generally attributed to Alexander Swer-
ford, who was treasurer's clerk ^ and became arch-
deacon of Salop and a baron of the Exchequer, and
died in 1246. The only reason for identifying the
authorship of the two books appears to be that the
Red Book, which incorporates the chief part of the
Black Book with very much more, is undoubtedly
the compilation of Swerford and probably in part
in his own handwriting. Swerford therefore at
least deserves the credit of having taken up and
transmitted the Exchequer tradition of his day.
He is not to be compared in intelligence or know-
ledge with bishop Richard of London, and his
comments on the records which he cites are often
simple mistakes. If he was the actual transcriber
of a part of the Red Book it must be confessed
that he was a careless worker, and his proper
names and numerals are not to be trusted. Still
we are indebted to Swerford for preserving a large
store of official information which we should not

1 Alexander, the treasurer's T. D. Hardy 1835, p. 108. A

clerk, of London, is mention- year earlier he appears as

ed in the 5th year of John; Alexander the clerk, of Win-

Rotuli Normanniae, ed. Chester : p. 63.

I ALEXANDER SWERFORD ; ARTHUR AGARD 15

otherwise possess. The Liber Niger Scaccarii was
edited from three modern transcripts by Thomas
Hearne in 1728 ; ^ it contains a good many errors,
but most of them of a kind that can be easily
corrected. The Red Book of the Exchequer was
printed also from a transcript, but collated with
the original, though not at all following the arrange-
ment of the manuscript, under the direction of the
master of the rolls in 1898. The preface is not
helpful.2

The records of the Exchequer were at first
preserved in the Receipt ; but in course of time
they outgrew this depository and were placed in
four Treasuries, two in the Exchequer buildings
by Westminster Hall and two within the precincts
of the Abbey.^ A catalogue of them was made in
the latter part of the sixteenth century by Arthur
Agard, who was a clerk in the Exchequer and
became deputy-chamberlain in 1603.* But it
does not appear that they were at all frequently
consulted for any but official purposes. In the
classical age of antiquarian learning — the age of
Spelman, Selden, Dodsworth, Twysden, Prynne,

^ I use the reprint of 177 1. ^ See bishop William Nicol-

2 Mr. Round supplies criti- son's English Historical Li-

cism both of the text and of brary, 2nd ed., 1714, pp.

the preface of this edition in 208 f.

his Studies on the Red Book * Sir F. Palgrave, Ancient

of the Exchequer, printed for Kalendars of the Exchequer,

private circulation [1898.] iii. 451. Agard died in 1615.

i6 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

and Dugdale, who all died between 1641 and 1686 —
it was the documents of the Chancery to which,
after the chronicles, recourse was chiefly made. The
reason for this was in part that the Chancery records
were more accessible, under an experienced keeper,
in the Tower of London : in part, that scholars
found more convenient places for study in the in-
comparable library which Sir Robert Cotton had
brought together in his house near Westminster
Hall, which contained an abundance of materials
for their purpose ; and some of them worked in
the Bodleian library, which gradually amassed
a large number of transcripts of records. Though
Agard bequeathed to him most of his store of
Exchequer collections, when Cotton wrote a paper
on a subject which they must have illustrated,
it was An Abstract out of the Records of the
Tower touching the King's Revenue ; and William
Prynne's Aurum Reginae,^ published in 1668, is
almost the first book in which the documents of
the Exchequer were set out side by side with
those of the Chancery.

In 1683, more than six years after its author's
death, appeared A short Treatise concerning
Sheriffs Accompts by chief justice sir Matthew
Hale, who had been a judge in turn in all the
three Courts, and was chief baron of the Exchequer

1 William Hakewill, who on this subject, of which
died in 1655, also wrote a work several manuscripts are pre-
served.

I COTTON, PRYNNE, HALE, MADOX 17

from 1660 to 1671. Its value lies not only in the
lucid form in which the method of the account
is stated but also in the fact that the author
describes a system as he saw it at work which in
principle had changed but little for centuries.
Hale's little handbook must not be brought into
comparison with the massive treatise written by
Thomas Madox a generation later. Madox had
the advantage of being himself a clerk in the
lord treasurer's remembrancer's office and after-
wards in the office of augmentation, and his
History and Antiquities of the Exchequer is the
product of ripe learning and of profound study
of rolls and other records. It is a storehouse which
will always be consulted with profit for the fullness,
the precision, and the certainty of the materials
which it contains. Its faults are first that, in spite
of a careful classification and of a clear division
made between the Exchequer before and after
the accession of Henry III, the materials proved
unmanageable in the author's hands ; much in-
formation will be found in what is not obviously
its proper place, and facts relative to the ' second
period ' are related under the ' first ' and con-
versely : and secondly, that the author's extreme
modesty prevented him from denying statements
current in his day which his superior learning
would have justified him in refuting. That there
are also gaps even in Madox's wonderful equip-
ment need not be concealed ; but his book remains

1376 C

i8 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

a monument of erudition of which any country
might be proud.

After Madox we wait for more than a century
before any work of importance was done in relation
to the Exchequer. The appointment of the first
Record Commission in 1800 followed by others down
to 1831 led to the publication of a large number
of reports on the contents of manuscript collections
and of editions of unprinted materials both from
the Chancery and the Exchequer; but the task
of criticism and exposition came later. Hunter's
preface to the Pipe Roll of 1130 is almost the only
pubUcation issued by the Commission which bears
directly on our present subject. The masterly
Observations on the Great Rolls of the Exchequer
of Normandy, which Thomas Stapleton prefixed
to his edition of the Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae
in 1840, stand outside the official series. They and
the admirable treatise by Leopold Delisle on the
Revenus publics en Normandie, printed in the
Biblioth^que de T^cole des Chartes between 1848
and 1852/ laid the foundations of the scientific
study of the fiscal system of the Norman kings.
Bishop Stubbs illustrated its parallel working in
England in some ranges of its operation in the
preface to the second volume of the Gesta Henrici,^

1 2nd series, v,

vi; 3rd

Richard I known commonly

series, i, iii.

under the name of Benedict

2 The Chronicle

of the

of Peterborough, 1867.

Reigns of Henry

II and

I MODERN PUBLICATIONS 19

and gave a compendious description of the whole
in his Constitutional History of England.^ For the
Dialogue on the Exchequer Professor Liebermann's
Einleitung, published in 1875, is of permanent
value.

The foundation of the Pipe Roll Society in 1884
gave an impetus to the study in greater detail
of the subject to which it was devoted; and to
no one are we more indebted than to Mr. J. Horace
Round, who in a large number of scattered papers
has treated it with the sure grasp of an expert
auditor and with an unequalled knowledge of the
personal and territorial conditions of the twelfth
century. Among smaller contributions I should
mention an article by Mr. G. J. Turner on the
Sheriff's Farm, which appeared in the Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society for 1898,^ and
a modest essay entitled Compotus Vicecomitis,
which was published by Professor Parow of the
Friedrichs-Werdersche Oberrealschule at Berlin in
1906 and represents a great deal of laborious and
careful work. The introduction to the Oxford
edition of the Dialogue published in 1902 has the
special merit of having been written by men who by
their official position lived in constant touch with
the records. Its scholarly cautiousness commands
respect, and though not professing to give a complete
description of the Exchequer system, it is the

1 § 126. 2 Ne^ Series, xii. 117-149.

C2

20 TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES i

nearest approach to such a description which we
possess.^

In the following lectures I propose to discuss in
turn the manner in which money was paid and the
system of account ; the source from which this
system was derived and the organization by which
it was carried out on the part of the central
administration and of the local officers ; finally
I shall say something about the Exchequer as
a Court of law.

1 There are unfortunately a good many misprints, particularly
in the references.

II

THE ANCIENT TREASURY

What do we know of the way in which the king's
revenue was paid and of the officer or officers who
supervised its receipt before the Norman Conquest ?
Modern writers have had no difficulty about the
matter: 'The King's ''Hoarder''/ says Freeman/
'was as old as the king's "hoard". Under the
Norman kings he appears under the Latin title
of Treasurer/ But in fact the word ' hoard '
is never found as a designation of the king's
treasure or treasury, and ' hoarder ' (hordere) is
that merely of a land-steward ; ^ it is, as bishop

1 Norman Conquest, v
(1876) 434.

2 In the Anglo-Saxon Laws
the meaning is clear. Athel-
stan ii. 10 forbids any one to
exchange cattle without the
witness either of the reeve
or the masspriest or the land-
lord or the hordere. Similarly
in Edmund iii. 5 (preserved
only in the Latin of the
Quadripartitus) no one is to
deal with an unknown beast
without the witness of the
head-reeve or the priest or the
hordarius or the portreeve.
Athelstan ii. 3. i, 2, prescribes

, certain penalties against a
man who is privy to his slave's
theft, and adds that the same
rule shall apply to ' any king's
hordere or one of our reeves '.
A domestic regulation, Cnut
ii. 76. 1 a, requires a housewife
to keep the key of her hor-
dern or store-closet, which
the Latin translates dispensa,
Dispensator was an equiva-
lent of ' steward '. In the
Anglo-Saxon version of the
Rule of St. Benedict (ed.
H. Logeman, 1888) hordere
translates cellararius (cap.
xxxi).

22 ' THE ANCIENT TREASURY ii

Stubbs clearly pointed out, ' not the name of a great
official/ ^ The statement about the ' hoard ' as
well as the modernized name ' hoarder ' seems to
be due to Freeman ; but the hordere was suggested
by Kemble, who in his accustomed way mixes up
a good deal of sound fact with unsupported con-
jectures : ' The names/ he says,^ ' by which the
Chamberlain was designated are Hraegel f>egn,
literally thane or servant of the wardrobe, Cubicu-
larius, Camerarius, Bur]?egn, perhaps sometimes
Dispensator, and Thesaurarius or Hordere/ He
then describes his functions by the help of the
account given by Hincmar of the arrangements
of the Carolingian court in the middle of the
ninth century, and proceeds to give a list of the
persons whom he has found holding the office.^

For these he cites eight charters, six of which he
admits to be open to suspicion. They contain the
titles hrcBglpegn, burfiegn, camerarius, and cuhicu-
larius} Florence of Worcester adds the name
dispensator. I omit stiweard, which comes from
a glaring forgery.^ Lastly there is one mention
of a thesaurarius found in a Wilton chartulary of
the thirteenth century ; ^ the person so designated
appears in another authority under the Anglo-

1 Constitutional History of * This last is from a four-
England, § 126 in a note. teenth-century manuscript.

2 The Saxons in England, ^ Codex Diplomaticus, no.
ii. 104, ed. 1876. 899.

3 P. 105. 6 Ibid., no. 320.

n THE KING'S CHAMBERLAIN 23

Saxon name of hrcelden} Kemble did not quote
the one definite example of a treasurer known
from early evidence. At the time of the Domesday
inquest Henry the treasurer held Soberton, Eastley,
and Nutley in Hampshire.^ From the Liber Win-
toniensis, a survey drawn up between 1103 and
1115,^ we learn that he held lands in the city of
Winchester in the reign of Edward the Confessor.^
It is not however said that he was treasurer at
that date. The title cannot be proved to belong
to any one before the Norman Conquest.

The ' hoarder ' then rests upon a mistake.
The 'hoard' is never used to mean a treasury.
The treasurer has no pre-conquest evidence. The
only names that we can rely on are the Anglo-
Saxon hrcBglpegn and hurpegn and the Latin came-
rarius and cubicularius , though none of these is
cited by Kemble from authorities at all near the
Anglo-Saxon period. The Latin names however
do in fact appear in genuine contemporary
charters, and the English ones are attested by
early evidence of a different sort.^ They will help

1 Thorpe, Diplomatarium Society, part ix (1911) plate
Anglicanum, p. 170. 212.

2 Fo. 49 a. * Domesday Book, iv. 539^.

3 See Round, in the Vic- ^ Dr. l. M. Larson has col-
toria History of the Counties lected the evidence in a valu-
of England, Hampshire, i able thesis on The King's
(1900) 527 f . The existing Household in England be-
manuscript was written about fore the Norman Conquest
1150 : see a facsimile given (Madison, Wisconsin, 1904)
by the New Palaeographical pp. 124-133.

24 THE ANCIENT TREASURY ii

us to identify the officers — for they were more
than one — who had charge of the king's money
matters and whose title survived until 1826.
The burfiegn, the servant of the king's bower
or chamber, was the chamberlain. He was also
called the hrcBglpegn or servant of the wardrobe.
The Chamber was the place where the treasure
was kept. To this day the Chamber of London is
the financial office of the City, and the chamber-
lain is the treasurer. The distinction between
public revenue and the king's privy purse was
unknown, and all money that came to the crown
may be presumed to have been paid in to the
Chamber. The other name, that of the hrceglpegn,
is not less significant, because the Wardrobe from
the beginning of the thirteenth century can be
shown to have done a large amount of the financial
business of the country.^ The king's privy seal
came in time to be the special instrument of its
administration, and thus, though the offices of
the Wardrobe were abolished in 1782,^ the name
of the Lord Privy Seal continues its tradition to
the present day.

I have said that the Anglo-Saxon bower thanes
or rail thanes were more than one. King Eadred
in his will made gifts to three classes of high
officers of 80 mancuses of gold, to the appointed

1 T. F. Tout, in the English 2 gy the statute of 22
Historical Review xxiv (1909) George III, cap. 82.
496.

II THE CHAMBERLAINS 25

dish thanes, the appointed rail thanes, and the
appointed birels (or butlers),— a warning against
our assuming that the Frankish order of four
single great officers of the household, the chamber-
lain, the seneschal, the butler, and the constable,^
was imported into England. Of chamberlains we
had more than one ; there were two in the
Treasury down to 1826. But the chamberlains
were laymen, and when accounts came to be kept
it would be necessary to have an educated man,
a clerk, to supervise their drawing up. This officer
is known later on as the treasurer. Henry the
treasurer, whom I have mentioned as holding lands
under Edward the Confessor, may possibly have
borne that title before the Norman Conquest, but
what that title was in Anglo-Saxon is unknown.
I suppose he was one of the king's chaplains, and
he may have had no vernacular name, any more
than the other chaplain whom the Normans
called the chancellor.^ Even when the treasurer

1 Hincmar, de Ordine Pala- tached to a grant by Edward
tii, xxii, xxiii (ed. V. Krause the Confessor of Wargrave
1894) pp. 17 f. to the Old Minster at Win-

2 This seems to be the ex- Chester, Cotton Charter x.
planation of the description 17 ; but the document though
of RcBgnbold preost as Ragin- in form a diploma differs from
hold cancellarius or canceler. everyknownspecimenof apre-
The evidence for his having conquest diploma in the facts
borne the title of chancellor that it is written in Anglo-
under Edward the Confessor Saxon and that it once bore a
is insufficient. The subscrip- seal. The handwriting points
tion Raimballd canceli is at- tothereignof William the Con-

26

THE ANCIENT TREASURY

11

acquired a substantial position, he ranked after
the chief chamberlain and only received the same
allowances so long as he was engaged in the
service of the Court. This was how he stood in
the reign of Henry I. It was only when the
account came to take the first place and the
custody of the money the second, that the order
was reversed, and the treasurer ranked before
the two chamberlains.

As for the manner in which the king's treasure
was supplied before the Norman Conquest there

queror : see the Facsimiles of
Ancient Charters in the Brit-
ish Museum, iv (1878) 37. In
Domesday Book he appears
as Reimbaldus de Cirecestre
(fo. 63), Rainhaldus presbiter
(fo. 166 b), Rainboldus pres-
biter (fo. 65 b). In two other
places (fo. 56 b, 68 b) pres-
biter is an interlineation. In
fo. 180 6 the word canceller is
likewise inserted above the
line. Raegnbald is also men-
tioned in ten charters. Seven
of these were known to
Kemble, who marked five of
them as suspicious : the other
two come from the Codex
Wintoniensis, written in the
second quarter of the twelfth
century (Codex diplomaticus,
no. 891) and from the Cot-

tonian MS. Tiberius C. ix. of
the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries (ibid., no. 813). The
other three were printed from
a chartulary by sir Thomas
Phillipps in Archaeologia, xxvi
(1836) 256 ; one of them bears
the rubric. Carta regis Willelmi
confirmantis totam possessionem
Reinbaldi cancellarii. I there-
fore doubt whether Rainbald
can be proved to have been
styled chancellor before the
Norman conquest. Mr. Round
however thinks otherwise : see
Feudal England, 1895, p. 421,
and The Officers of Edward
the Confessor, in the English
Historical Review, xix (1904)
92. Compare Mr. W. H.
Stevenson's note, ibid., xi
(1896) 731.

II RENTS IN KIND 27

is no evidence beyond the materials incidentally
given in Domesday Book. From these it results
that, although many items in the revenue were
paid in kind, they were computed in money : the
value of the cattle or corn or honey was an ascer-
tainable and ascertained value. Bishop Richard,
who it must be admitted, is not consistent with
himself on this matter, gives the traditional
account of the system as he had heard it :

' As it has been handed down to us by our fathers,
in the early state of the kingdom after the Conquest,
the kings received from their manors not sums of gold
or silver but only payments in kind (vidualia) which
furnished the necessaries for the daily use of the king's
household. And the officials appointed for the business
knew how much was due from each manor. ... I have
myself seen people who have seen provisions brought
up to the court at appointed times from the king's
manors : and the officials of the king's household knew
precisely from which counties wheat was due, and from
which various kinds of fleshmeat and horses' forage and
other requisites. Now when these were paid according
to the appointed manner of each thing, the king's officials
accounted for them to the sheriff reducing them to a sum
of money, as

for a measure of wheat for bread for 100 men is.

for the carcase of a grass-fed ox is.

for a ram or ewe 4d.

for provender for 20 horses 4d.

The tradition thus recorded in the Dialogue may
be verified in Domesday Book. It seems that the

1 Dicilogus i. 7 pp. 193 f.

28 THE ANCIENT TREASURY u

duty of providing for the maintenance of the king's
household for each day had at one time been
divided among his manors. Some were charged
with the entire firma unius diet or nodis as their
yearly rent ; others with half or three-quarters
of such a farm ; in other cases again several
manors were grouped together to supply the same
amount. That these provender rents were valued
in money can be shown from some examples in
Hampshire. In the time of Edward the Confessor
Basingstoke, Kingsclere, and Hurstbourn paid one
day's farm ; the amount is not stated.^ Broughton
paid £y6 i6s. 8d., it is not said for what. But
Barton Stacey and EUng are each separately
charged with ;^38 8s. 4d., for the farm of half
a day. Two other manors are described as worth
£76 i6s. 8d.^ This sum is manifestly the amount
at which the day's farm was accounted for to the
sheriff ; and the recurrence of so peculiar a figure
as £y6 i6s. 8d. suggests that it is a modification
of an earlier round sum. But what this earlier
figure was it is hard to say. It cannot be an
addition on account of deficiency of weight ;
for there is no number of pounds which added
to an equal number of multiples of pence will bring
out the exact sum of ;£76 i6s. 8d.^ One is led

1 Cf . Spelman, Glossarium, History of Hampshire, i. 401-
s. V. Firma. 403.

2 The figures are collected ^ jhus £ys with an addi-
by Mr. Round in the Victoria tion of 6d. in the pound comes

II THE FARM OF ONE DAY 29

therefore to suppose that this figure represents
a larger sum reduced by an estimate of the
depreciation of the coins. Now ;£8o diminished
by 9Jd. in the pound leaves exactly ^^76 i6s. 8d.,
and this I suggest to be the earlier amount of
the farm of one day. In the time of the Domesday
survey the ;^76 i6s. 8d. is found to be increased
to £104 I2S. 2d. not only in Basingstoke and its
neighbours/ but also at Broughton, Barton Stacey,
and Eling. Similar figures are found in Somerset :
in two instances ;fio6 os. lod., in two others
£100 los. 9Jd., in one £105 17s. 4jd.2 They defy
analysis ; but they look as though they represented
a sum between £95 and £98 enhanced by payment
by weight. However this may be, it appears that
in certain definite instances the farm of one day or
night amounted before the Conquest to something
like £80, and after to something approaching £100.
This result is not impaired by the fact that in
most cases the one day's farm was very con-
siderably reduced. The original application having
been forgotten, the amount was for various reasons

to £76 17s. 6d. ; £74 with an inquest of 1274 in the Hun-
addition of gd. in the pound dred Rolls ii. 220 (where the
to £76 15s. 6d. The excess of figure is given as £104 12s.),
lod. in the one case, and the cited and explained by Mr.
deficiency of I4d. in the other Round, Victoria History of
do not represent a difference Hampshire, i. 401 f.
of a halfpenny in the pound. 2 Round, Feudal England,
1 This is not stated in p. 11 1 : The Commune of
Domesday Book, but in an London, pp. 71 f.

30 THE ANCIENT TREASURY ii

diminished in the same way as other payments
were altered. In Oxfordshire the night's farm
was £50 ; at Beeding in Sussex it had been in
king Edward's time £95 os. 6d., afterwards £50,
and at the time of Domesday ;^io. All I am
concerned to show is that this farm bears traces
of having been at one time a nearly uniform sum,
based upon a definite obligation of a payment in
kind. But the commutation was generally estab-
lished before the Norman Conquest. There is also
evidence that the gross sums for which the sheriffs
were responsible had been, at least in certain cases,
compounded for by a fixed farm as early as
the time of Edward the Confessor, and that the
sheriff was authorized to deduct from the amount
payable by him the annual value of lands which
the king had granted away.^ Whether therefore
cattle or wheat or silver pennies were rendered at
the Treasury, they were reckoned in money, and
it is certain from Domesday that the money
paid was required in many cases to be subjected
to a test ; that is to say, an additional sum of
money had to be tendered in order to make good
the deficiency shown by the assay. This mode
of payment is called ' blank \ and I shall have often
to speak about it hereafter. I only mention it here
because there has been a good deal of misunder-
standing on the subject. In the Dialogue ^ it is

1 See Round, The Commune of London, pp. 72 f.

2 i. 4 p. 176.

II BLANK FARM IN DOMESDAY BOOK 31

stated positively that Domesday makes absolutely
no mention of this form of payment, and this
assertion was unfortunately repeated by bishop
Stubbs.^ But as long ago as Charles IFs time
the facts were perfectly understood. Sir Matthew
Hale quotes the statement in the Dialogue that
it was set on foot by Roger bishop of Salisbury with
the comment * though in truth it were much more
ancient, as appears by frequent passages in the
Book of Doomsday '? The existence of such a
system indicates a relatively advanced machinery
at the Treasury. It requires not merely the officials
of the Receipt, but also skilled workmen possessed
of such chemical knowledge as was needed for
the purpose of the assay.

In Domesday Book payments in blank money
seem to have been made almost exclusively from
the king's lands, where one would expect a strict
system to be first adopted ; and it has been
maintained that no private landholders ever
received payment blank and that any instance
which appears to indicate that they did can be
accounted for by special circumstances.^ The
most common mode of payment was by tale, ad
numerum, but there are many examples also of
payment by weight, ad pensum. The two methods
might be combined, as when the counted pennies

^ Constitutional History of ing Sheriffs Accompts, p. 22.
England, § 126 in a note. ^ Introduction to the Dia-

2 A Short Treatise concern- logus, pp. 33 ff.

32 THE ANCIENT TREASURY ii

were required to be twenty to the ounce.^ If the
coins were weighed, of course the payer had to
make good the deficiency, which might amount
to as much as i6d. in the pound : ^ if he paid by
tale later usage suggests that a fixed deduction
was made from every pound he paid ; as soon
as we have definite information we find the deduc-
tion to be uniformly at the rate of 5 per cent, or
one shilling in the pound.

*' Another mode of payment is spoken of in the
Dialogue as of earlier use than that by weight.
This is pajmient at a fixed rate, ad sealant, that is
by paying a vantage-money of 6d. in the pound in
addition to the sum due.^ It has been suggested
that this plan was adopted in 1108, when the
coinage was reformed, and that when a second
reform was made in 1125 payment ad pensum was
enforced.^ Undoubtedly payment ad sealant is
found in Henry Ts reign, and seems to have fallen
into disuse before 1130.^ But I am not at all sure
that it meant anything but blank payment, taken
on an average, without going to the trouble of
performing the assay. If in a particular place the
money was found ordinarily to be pretty good,

1 Introduction to the Dia- logus, p. 38.

logus, pp. 34 f . ^ Sir Matthew Hale indeed

2 See an example from the cited ad scalam from ' the an-
RoU of 1130 in Round's Com- cient pipe rolls ' (pp. 21 f.) ;
mune of London, pp. 91 f. but Madox (ix. 2 p. 188) could

3 i. 7 p. 194. not find any instances of such
* Introduction to the Dia- payments.

II PAYMENTS AD SCALAM AND AD PENSUM 33

so that sixpence of advance would suffice to meet
the loss by the assay, it might be agreed to dis-
pense with the test and accept the additional
sixpence. In later times this was undoubtedly the
case. What is certain is that there are two writs of
Henry I referring to the same payment, one of
which describes the amount as £2^ ad sealant
and the other as £25 blank ; ^ and that there can
be no dispute about the exact amount is shown
by the fact that when under Henry II the money
was paid by tale, the sum demanded was increased
by I2s. 6d.^ As this was now recorded by tale the
sheriff was the loser : he had to pay out £25 12s. 6d.,
but was only credited with a deduction of this sum
less a shilling in the pound, that is with £24 6s. lojd.^
But we possess in fact no evidence as to the
manner in which accounts were kept of the monies
paid, beyond the tradition reported in the Dialogue
that the old name for the Exchequer was Tallies ;
that is, that the method which preceded that of

^ They are enrolled among in the thirteenth century,

the Chart ae Antiquae, N. 15 Thus in the close roll of

and 16 in the PubHc Record 19 Henry III m. 2 (Close

Office : see the quotations in Rolls 1234-1237, 1908, p. 150)

Madox, ubi supra. Eleanor countess of Pembroke

2 See Round, The Com- is discharged of £135 blanco-
mime of London, pp. 85 ff. rum, que extense sunt ad

3 Possibly it was this in- £141 15s. The writ is cited
convenience which led to the in error by Hale, pp. 28 f., as
advance being raised to a of the 13th year.

shilling instead |of sixpence

1376 D

34

THE ANCIENT TREASURY

II

counting on a chequered board was that of reckon-
ing the cuts and notches on spHt sticks. There
is no reason for doubting the antiquity of this
system of tallies, which survived until 1826 side
by side with a more modern system. But it may
be doubted whether bishop Richard is correct
in saying that the place of payment was called
the Tallies.^ At least the only example that has
been noticed of a transaction which in later times
would have been described as at the Exchequer
is said to have been done in the Treasury.^ It

1 ' Although a table of this
sort is called scaccarium, the
name is transferred so that
the court itself which is at
the session of the scaccarium
is also called scaccarium ; so
that if a man obtain anything
by its sentence or if anything
be appointed by its common
counsel, it is said to be done
at the Exchequer of such and
such a year. But what is
now called ad scaccarium was
formerly called ad taleas': '
Dialogus i. i p. 171.

2 This is a plea at Win-
chester in the Treasury, some
time after July 1108 and
before the summer of 1113 :
see Mr. Round's paper on the
Early Custody of Domesday
Book, in The Antiquary, xvi
(1887) 9, and Feudal England,

pp. 142 f., 1895. It is printed
in the Chronicon Monasterii
de Abingdon (ed. J. Steven-
son, 1858), ii. 116, and runs
as follows :

' Mathildis Angliae regina
Roberto episcopo Lincolniensi
et Thomae de Sancto lohanne
et omnibus baronibus Francis
et Anglis de Oxenefordscira
salutem.

' Sciatis quod Faritius abbas
de Abbendona in curia domini
mei et mea apud Wintoniam
in thesauro ante Rogerum epi-
scopum Salesberiensem et Ro-
bertum episcopum Lincolnien-
sem et Richardum episcopum
Lundoniensem et Willielmum
de Curceio et Adam de Port et
Turstinum capellanum et Wal-
terum de Gloecestria et Her-
bertum camerarium et Williel-

II THE TREASURY AT WINCHESTER 35

is however possible that the Tallies may have been
a popular name for it.

This Treasury was kept in the king's castle
at Winchester.^ Henry the treasurer had a house
there even before the Norman conquest,^ and after-
wards he acquired three manors in Hampshire.^
One of the king's chamberlains also held the manor
of Hartley Mauditt in Hampshire by serjeanty
at the Treasury. His ancestor William Mauduit
possessed it in the time of Domesday Book.* He
held also Porchester, * where, under Henry II,
we find treasure stored on its way to Normandy.
One is tempted,' says Mr. Round, ' to see in this
practice the reason why Porchester was held by
the Domesday chamberlain of the treasury.' ^ His
widow had ' a house outside the gate of Win-
mum de Oileio et Goisfredum ^ Chronicon Monasterii de
filium Herbert! et Willielmum Abingdon, ii. 116.
de Enesi et Radulfum Bas- 2 j^ Wenegenestret : Liber
set et Goisfredum de Magna- Winton. p. 539.
villa et Goisfredum Ridel et ^ Domesday Book fo. 49.
Walterum archidiaconum de * In Domesday Book f 0.47 6
Oxeneford, et per Librum de William Maldoit held with
Thesauro disrationavit quod other lands Herlege (Hartley
Leuecanora manerium suum Mauditt), Porcestre (Porches-
nihil omnino debet in hun- ter), and Seldern (Shalden).
dredo de Perituna facere ; sed ^ Victoria History of Hamp-
omnia quae debet facere, tan- shire, i. 432. William Mau-
tummodo in hundredo Lena- duit is not however styled
canora facere debet, in quo chamberlain in Domesday
hundredo habet ecclesia de Book.
Abbendona x. et vii. hidas.'

D 2

36 THE ANCIENT TREASURY ii

Chester with land in Fuller's Street and houses
likewise \^ The lands went with the chamberlain-
ship and were held afterwards by the two sons
Robert and William.^ The offices of treasurer
and chamberlain, as we have seen, were closely
associated, and for centuries to come every writ
of issue from the Chancery was addressed to them
conjointly. It was natural that they should have
been endowed with land in the neighbourhood of
the place where their duties lay.

The Treasury was much more than a store-
house of money and other valuables. ' Where
thy treasure is, there shall thy heart be also '
was appropriately quoted by the author of the
Dialogue : ^ it was the very centre of the ad-
ministration of the Court. There was kept
Domesday Book to be referred to as evidence of
tenure, and there early in Henry Ts reign we find
the whole court sitting to decide a dispute as to
the dues of the abbot of Abingdon and deciding
it by reference to Domesday Book.* Finance and
judicature from the first, it may be beheved, went
together ; and we shall see hereafter that the
association continued down to the reforms of the

1 Round in The Ancestor, the chamberiainship were held
V (1903) 208, from Add. MS. by Robert's son-in-law Wil-
28024 in the British Museum, liam of Pont de TArche.

2 Ibid., pp. 208 f. ; The ^ j, ^ p, jyy and 14 p. 207.
Commune of London, pp. 81 ff. * Above p. 34 note 2.

For some time the lands and

II THE TREASURY UNDER HENRY I 37

nineteenth century. In like manner another
piece of evidence of about the same time does not
certainly mark an innovation, but it is the earliest
example that has been brought to light of a royal
writ ordering a sheriff to make a specific payment
in accordance with an enrolment. It was pubUshed
last spring by Dr. J. Armitage Robinson, now
dean of Wells, in his work on Gilbert Crispin
Abbot of Westminster,^ and runs as follows :

Henry King of the English to Richard de Monte greeting.
Cause the Abbot of Westminster to have lo shillings of
my alms, as it is in my rolls. Witness the Bishop of
Salisbury at Cannock. And this every year. Witness
the same. 2

Here we have several features of interest. First,
the king orders the sheriff to make a payment of
alms such as those for which, when the pipe rolls
are preserved, we find him regularly asking for
allowance as a deduction from his farm. Secondly,
the order was recorded on the rolls.^ This may

1 P. 149 no. 32. writ to Eudo the steward and

2 * Henricus rex Angl. Ri- Herbert the chamberlain or-
cardo de Monte salutem. fac dering that the convents of
habere . abbati Westm' x Westminster, Winchester, and
soHdos de elemosina mea, Gloucester should have plena-
sicut est in rotulis meis. T' ria liber alio from him at his
episcopo Sarum [thus printed] feasts and that their chanters
apud Canoe. Et hoc quoque should have an ounce of gold,
anno. Teste eodem : ' from a But no reference is made to
Westminster chartulary, Cot- any roll : the authority is
ton MS. Faustina A. iii. fo. 79. oral — ' as bishop Maurice of

3 In iioo Henry I issued a London has borne witness

38

THE ANCIENT TREASURY

II

either mean that the great roll of the year which
we call the pipe roll was already in existence, or
else that the king's writs were already enrolled in
a form of which we have no example before the
reign of John : the former alternative is the more
probable. Thirdly, the order for a single payment
is changed into a permanent charge by the addi-
tion of the words Et hoc quoque anno, with the
witness repeated.

I wish we could fix the date of this writ, which
Dr. Robinson places approximately between mo
and Easter 1116. It belongs to a time when the
system of account had been reduced to roll ; it
was no longer a mere matter of comparing the cuts

that they had in the time of
my predecessors (Robinson,
Gilbert Crispin, p. 141 no. 18).
Sir Francis Palgrave long ago
pointed out that this oral
witness is the primary mean-
ing of ' record * : Rise and
Progress of the English Com-
monwealth, i. 145 ff., 1832.
Compare the use of recordatio
in the Dialogus ii. 20 p. 240.

As for Herbert he is styled
' the king's treasurer of Win-
chester ' in a charter of about
1100-1108 (ibid., p. 146 no.
27), and described by the
chronicler of Abingdon as regis
cuhicularius et thesaurarius in
William Rufus's time (Chroni-
con Monasterii de Abingdon

ii. 43) : but he witnesses as
camerarius (ibid., p. 52), and
this is his title in the Winton
survey (Domesday Book iv.
531, 534, 558)- The Lans-
downe MS. 114 fo. 55 (a
sixteenth-century transcript
among the Burghley papers)
contains a record of the in-
spection of a charter of
Henry I in rotulo regis under
Henry H ; but Mr. Round
thinks that this reference
may be to Roll N. of the
Chartae Antiquae at the Pub-
lic Record Office written in
Henry H's time (The Com-
mune of London, p. ^^), from
which the charter is printed
by Madox ix. 2 p. 188 r.

II THE BARONS OF THE EXCHEQUER sg

and notches on tallies. About the same time there
emerges the name scaccarium or Exchequer : it is
in a writ of Henry I to Roger bishop of Salisbury
and the barons of the Exchequer ratifying a gift
which his queen Matilda had made to the canons
of Holy Trinity in London from the £25 blank
which the king had given her from the farm of
the city of Exeter. The document is earlier than
May 1118, when queen Matilda died. The witness
is Geoffrey of Clinton/ who had been at the Court
in 1 1 15 or earlier,^ and who is found somewhat
later, after the king's second marriage in 1121,
to have been treasurer and chamberlain.^ As
we have found the king's court in session at
the Treasury, so we now find the barons of the
Exchequer entrusted with judicial powers. The
king commands bishop Richard Belmeis of London
* to do full right to the abbot of Westminster as
touching the men who broke into his church of
Winton [Wenington, Essex] by arms at night.
And unless you do it, my barons of the Exchequer
will cause it to be done, that I hear no complaint
thereof for default of right \^

1 Madox, I.e., from Chart ae ^ Madox, p. 40 a, from
Antiquae N. 16. Chartae Antiquae 00. 12.

2 He witnesses with Ranulf * * Henricus rex Angl* Ri-
the chancellor and R. Basset cardo episcopo de Lundon'
a charter of Henry I printed sal'. Mando tibi ut facias
by Dr. Robinson, p. 147 no. plenum rectum abbati Westm'
29 from the Westminster de hominibus qui fregerunt
Chartulary D. fo. 516 b. ecclesiam suam de Winton*

40

THE ANCIENT TREASURY

II

The subject of the judicature at the Exchequer
will come before us at a later stage.^ Here I only
mention it in connexion with the appearance of
the word at, a date not later than 1118. The word
indicates a revolution in the method of auditing
the accounts ; it means the introduction of a pre-
cise system of calculation worked out by counters
on a chequered table and recorded on roUs.^

noctu et armis. et nisi fece-
ris, barones mei de scaccario
f aciant fieri, ne audiam clamo-
rem inde pro penuria recti : '
Robinson, p. 148 n. 31, from
MS. Faustina A. iii. fo. 74.
The witness is unfortunately
omitted, and the editor gives
the wide margin of date 1108-
1127. Madox could not,
* upon diligent search, find
the original writ in the reposi-
tory of the church of West-
minster,' iv. 5 p. 121, and
printed it from the Cottonian
MS., vi. 2 p. 141 a. It is also
given by Stapleton.

1 See below,- chapter viii.

2 When Mr. Round says in
The Commune of London,
pp. 80 f., that ' the change
from the '' Treasury " to the
" Exchequer " was ... a
gradual process ', he appears
to mean that the word Ex-
chequer only came gradually
into use as denoting the place

of payment as well as the
place of audit. And this is
shown by the instances, given
in his Calendar of Documents
relating to France, i. 354 f.,
which describe the grants
made to the monks of Tiron.
First Henry I between 1114
and 1120 gave them 15 marks
a year to be received de
thesauro meo in festo s. Mi-
chaelis Wintonie. Then the
empress Matilda in July 1141
confirmed this de thesauro
Wintoniensi, adding 5 marks ;
the whole to be paid de firma
Wintoniensi. In 1152-1154
Henry duke of the Normans
confirmed the same grant de
thesauro Wintonie. Finally in
1 156-7 Henry went back to
the original 15 marks, which
was made payable from his
treasury at the Exchequer.
Mr. Round states clearly in
The Commune of London,
pp. 74 f., the precise meaning

II INTRODUCTION OF THE EXCHEQUER 41

Thenceforward the Treasury was limited to the
payment and storage of money; the business of
account and the higher work of judicature passed
to the Exchequer.

of the introduction of the definite act which operated
Exchequer, and that intro- at a definite date,
duction must have been a

Ill

THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER

Nothing is more difficult to explain than a system
so familiar that most of us never think at all
about it. Yet our decimal system of arithmetic
is the result of a long system of development.
At an early time the scientific treatment of numbers
was a part of geometry : ' the results of the fifth
book ' of EucHd ' in which the theory of proportion
is considered apply to any magnitudes, and there-
fore are true of numbers as well as of geometrical
magnitudes '} When in the first century of our
era geometrical demonstrations were abandoned
by Nicomachus, arithmetic was reduced to * the
study of the properties of numbers, and particu-
larly of their ratios \^ The work of Nicomachus
formed the basis of that of Boethius four hundred
years later ; and this became the accepted text-
book of the middle ages in the west. But the
theory of numbers, ratio, proportion, and the
progressions will not help you to ' do sums \
Ordinary practical calculations were not performed

1 W. W. Rouse Ball, A 2 Ibid., p. 98; cf.M. Cantor,

Short Account of the History Vorlesungen iiber Geschichte

of Mathematics (3rd ed. 1901) der Mathematik (2nd ed.,

pp. 60 f . Leipzig 1894) i. 400 ff.

Ill THE ABACUS 43

in writing, though the results were written down.
The calculation was done by means of a sanded
floor or table called an abacus, afterwards by
means of a tablecloth marked in squares or by
means of a frame containing a number of counters
strung on wires.

The reasons for this mechanical appliance were
two-fold. First, the rudiments of calculation were
considered to be things which were necessary to
be taught to children but were undeserving of
scientific discussion. In the second place it was
practically impossible to perform an elementary
arithmetical calculation in writing by means of the
Greek or Roman numerals. It was not merely
that their figures were cumbrous, but also that
their decimal system was defective in that it
lacked the essential element of zero, which did not
come into the west from the Arabs until a late
data^ Now the abacus supplied a simple means
for addition and subtraction. If the floor was
sanded the calculator made columns^ of grooves

1 Richer's statement, Hist, century, which so far as the

iii. 54, that Gerbert employed abacus is concerned, is based

nine notae for hiS' calculations upon Gerbert. See his edition

is remarkably confirmed by of Gerbert's Opera mathema-

Dr. N. Bubnov's proof that tica (Berlin 1899), especially

the treatise on geometry at- the notes on pp. 157 f., 188 ff.

tributed to Boethius, in which But there is no trace of zero

nine figures nearly resembling here.

the Arabic numerals appear, 2 There is evidence of an

is a forgery of the eleventh abacus with horizontal lines,

44 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

with a stick and placed as many counters in each
as he required. If he used a chequered cloth, the
counters were arranged within the vertical columns.
Every column denoted a decimal stage : units,
tens, hundreds, and so forth. The principle of
the value of position was established.^ Thus, when
a column had no counter in it, there was nothing
to count : the discovery of zero was for practical
purposes anticipated.^ But this was only on the

but that with vertical col-
umns is the only one that
need be mentioned in con-
nexion with our subject : see
G. Friedlein, Die Zahlzeichen
und das elementare Rechnen
der Griechen und Romer
(Erlangen 1869) pp. 23, 48 ff.

1 This is clearly pointed out
in the Dialogus i. 5 p. 183,
where the disciple says, ' Vi-
dere mihi videor fieri posse
ratione calculandi ut idem
denarius pro calculo missus
nunc nummum, nunc solidum,
nunc libram, nunc centum,
nunc mille significet.*

2 When zero was introduced
into the Latin world the
abacus was superseded by
calculations with the decimal
notation, which was then
called algorism. It derived
its name from the eminent
Arab mathematician of the
early part of the ninth cen-

tury, Mohammad ibn Musa
al Khuwarezmi, whose arith-
metical treatise was translated
into Latin in the earlier part of
the twelfth century. Of this
work, Algoritmi de Numero
Indorum, a single manuscript
exists of the thirteenth cen-
tury in the University Library
at Cambridge (li. vi. 5 fo. 102),
from which it is printed by
Boncompagni in the first
volume of his Trattati d'Arit-
metica, a work to which I
have not been able to obtain
access in the Bodleian Library
or in the British Museum. But
no one recognized the name of
Al Khuwarezmi in its Latin form
until M. Reinaud (Memoire sur
ITnde, Paris 1849, PP- 3^3 f-)
and Michel Chasles (in the
Comptes rendus de TAcademie
des Sciences, xlviii. 1057 f-*
1859). Both Chasles (p. 1059)
and Cantor (i. 671) suggest

Ill THE DECIMAL SYSTEM 45

abacus, not in writing. Hence the calculation was
performed by a mechanical process, and the result
written down afterwards.

To introduce this decimal system into England
meant a great deal when we consider that the
traditions of the country ran not on decimal but
on duodecimal hues. The hide of land contained
a hundred acres, but this was the long hundred
of six score. The arithmetic table ran up not
to a hundred but to hundtwelftig} The pound
contained 240 pennies. The pound's weight was
12 ounces. To adopt in the place of this duo-
decimal system one based upon tens and hundreds
was in fact revolutionary. It was not a change that
could have come in by degrees; it must have
been definitely devised by some one. I venture
with due reserve to submit a conjecture as to who
it was that introduced the abacus, or at least

that the translation may be Publications of the Pipe Roll
the work of Adelard. The Society, p. xviii, implies a
translation of the Liber Al- misunderstanding of the whole
ghoarismi de Practica Arisme- subject. The abacus was not
trice by John of Seville, or eastern, and it was the intro-
perhaps John of Luna, be- duction of Arabic numerals
longs to the next generation that led to its disuse.
(Cantor, pp. 750 f.). To speak 1 See Mr. W. H. Steven-
of ' the period of the general son's paper on The long Hun-
introduction of " Arabic " dred and its Use in England,
numerals, coinciding perhaps in the Archaeological Review
with the use of the eastern for December 1889, iv (1890)
" abacus " ', as is done in 313-322.
the seventh volume of the

46 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

the manner in which the abacus was introduced,
into the EngHsh Treasury.

We must first enquire what books of rules
existed for the use of the abacus. The first name
we hear of in this connexion is that of that great
man of science Gerbert, who ended his hfe as pope
Silvester II. But he mentions that as a young
man, perhaps about 970, he made use of a book
on the subject which cannot now be identified ; ^
and before he himself wrote, a commentary on the
Calculus of Victorius which includes the abacus
had been composed by Abbo of Fleury.^ About
the same time a treatise on the abacus was written
by Heriger afterwards abbot of Lobbes.^ These
three men were contemporaries and were masters
of the schools at Rheims, Fleury, and Liege. They
died in 1003, 1004, and 1007. They wrote for the
purposes of teaching, and dealt mainly with multi-
plication and division and fractions. It is com-
monly said that these treatises are based upon
Boethius, but Dr. Bubnov has proved from an
elaborate examination of the texts and of their
transmission in manuscript that the book on
geometry attributed to Boethius in which the

1 See the preface to his See Chasles, in the Comptes
Regulae de Numerorum Abaci rendus de TAcademie des
Rationibus, in Bubnov, p. 6 ; Sciences, Ixiv (1867) 1062 ff.
cf. note 5. 3 Bubnov, p, 205 and note I.

2 Bubnov, p. 197 and note I.

Ill WRITERS ON THE ABACUS 47

abacus is described is in fact a forgery of the
eleventh century compiled in a blundering way
from various sources and borrowing the whole
account of the abacus from Gerbert.^ The in-
fluence of Gerbert in the century after him is
shown not only by this forgery which sought
to attach his work to a famous name of the sixth
century, but also by the treatises of several
other writers on the abacus, among whom Berne-
linus and Herman the Cripple of Reichenau are
the best known.^

At the beginning of the twelfth century two
more treatises on the subject were produced by
Master Ralph of Laon and by Adelard of Bath ;
and there is also a brief collection of Reguncule
super Abacum, which was printed at Rome in

1 Ibid., p. 188 note 23. Dr. works, including those of
J. Tropfke, in his Geschichte Abbo and Heriger, commen-
der Elementar - Mathematik taries on Gerbert, &c. Dr.
(Leipzig 1902) i. 12 f., inclines Bubnov gives a list of them,
to this conclusion in regard pp. Hi, Hii. Fo. 3 h was
to the abacus contained in written in mo, and the
the Geometria of Boethius, handwriting is unmistakably
but makes no mention of English. The manuscript be-
Dr. Bubnov's investigations. longed to Thomey abbey,

2 See Cantor, i. 825-834. where it may have been writ-
An extremely interesting ten : see for instance fo. 29.
manuscript at St. John's Col- It contains Anglo-Saxon en-
lege, Oxford, cod. xvii, writ- tries — one on fo. 7 h from
ten for the most part in BryhtfertS the monk of Ram-
several hands of the early sey, — prunes, and not a few
part of the twelfth century, words well written in Greek
contains a number of abacistic characters.

48 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

1882 from a manuscript in the Vatican library^
by Enrico Narducci, in the fifteenth volume of
prince Baldassare Boncompagni's BuUettino di
Bibliografia e di Storia delle Scienze matematiche
e fisiche,^ and is of special interest to us because,
like Adelard's treatise, it is of English origin. Its
author, Turchillus compotista,^ dedicates his book
to Simon de Rotoi, apparently Simon of Rutland,
who like him had learned his art from ' our vener-
able master William R/; and William the writer
places above all the calculators now living. Tur-
chill gives the plan of the abacus, with the signs
and names for the nine digits which were used for
counters. ' These signs (figurae)' he says,^ ' as
donnus William IJ bears witness, we have from
the Pythagoreans,' that is from the forged
Boethius,^ ' but the names from the Arabs.'
Turchill deals with the use of the abacus for the

1 Cod. 3123, of the second hall : see H. L. D. Ward,
half of the twelfth century. Catalogue of Romances in the

2 Pp. 135-154. I owe this Department of Manuscripts in
reference to the kindness of the British Museum, ii (1893)
my friend Mr. Haskins. 506-514.

3 The editor's attempt to * P. 136.

connect the author with Thur- 5 See Bubnov, pp. 156 f.,

kill who saw his famous vision 195 and the notes. Turchill

in Essex in 1206 (pp. 128 ff.) says (p. 150) that we have the

is ill-conceived. Apart from name of one of the fractions

the question of date, the of the as non ah antiquis sed

Vision does not profess to be a predicto Guillelmo JJ validis-

written by Thurkill, and is simo calculatore.
probably by Ralph of Cogges-

Ill TURCHILL'S TREATISE ON THE ABACUS 49

practical purpose of working accounts. Thus he
says,

^ When you first approach the abacus, that is the
science of the abacus, set out the debtors with their
debts ; draw three Hues across the middle of the table
lengthwise, and put the tokens representing each, that is
the number of those who pay and the number of what
is to be paid, and arrange carefully the sum arising from
their multiplication. In the upper line put the debts,
in the lower the debtors ; and the sum proceeding from
these amounts in the middle. For example : suppose
there are 23 knights, and each owes you six marks. You
want to know what total number of marks is made up
of these small sums, that is, of 23 times 6 marks. In the
upper line of the column of units, put a six for the 6
marks that are owing ; and in the lower line put a 2 and
3, a 2 in the column of tens and a 3 in the column of
units for the 23 knights, because they are the debtors.

The process which is given at length and occupies
a large quarto page is a tedious one, but it brings
out the required result, 138 marks. In another
example ^ a pound is to be divided among 288
workmen ; and each one is found to deserve a
halfpenny and a farthing and a third of a farthing,
or as we should say more compendiously five-sixths
of a penny. The most interesting example occurs
near the end :

Verbi gratia. Ducente marce sunt inter 11^ hidas divi-
dende, que sunt hide totius Eisexie, ut ait Hugo Boco-
landie.^

^ P. 137. 3 Bocolaudie in the manu-

2 Pp. 151 f. script.

1376 E

50 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

* Two thousand five hundred hides are the hides of
all Essex, as says Hugh of Buckland/ The figure is
nearly correct : in Domesday Book Maitland made
it 2,650.^ But what strikes one is that Hugh of Buck-
land is spoken of as a living witness and in a personal
way. Now Hugh is said to have been sheriff of
eight counties, and Essex was one of them.^ He
was constantly employed during the earlier years
of Henry I, but is not found mentioned after 11 14
and appears to have been dead in 1115.^ This
would seem to fix the date of our treatise. It
introduces us to two men in England interested
in the reckoning of the abacus in the first years
of the twelfth century, Turchill and Simon of
Rutland, both disciples of the famous calculator
William R. All these names are otherwise un-
known to us ; ^ but it is not impossible, as Pro-
fessor C. H. Haskins suggests,^ that the master may
be WilHam bishop of Syracuse,^ to whom Adelard
of Bath dedicated his treatise de Eodem et Diverso,
as ' most learned in all mathematical arts '?

1 Domesday Book and be- pounds into marks addressed
yond, 1897, p. 400. by Turchill to one Gilbert. It is

2 Chronicon Monasterii de printedby Narducci, pp. 127!.
Abingdon, ii. 117. Compare ^ in a paper which reached
Mr. H. E. Salter's remarks in me after this lecture was in
the English Historical Review, print and which has since ap-
xxvi (1911) 490. peared in the English Histori-

3 See Robinson, Gilbert cal Review for January 1912
Crispin, pp. 138, 148, 155. (xxvii. 103).

4 The treatise is followed by ^ From about 1104 to Iii5-
a letter on the conversion of ' A. Jourdain, Recherches

Ill RALPH OF LAON ON THE ABACUS 51

Ralph's Liber de Abaco was published for the
first time in 1890 from the only known manuscript
at Paris ^ by Dr. Alfred Nagl in the supplement
to the thirty-fourth volume of the Zeitschrift fiir
Mathematik und Physik.^ UnUke most abacists he
condescended to treat of subtraction and addition
as well as of the more difficult processes. He also
used signs for the digits which, as drawn in our
thirteenth-century manuscript, bear a close resem-
blance to the Arabic numerals. What is more
interesting is that he has a sign 0 resembling
zero, which he calls sipos (perhaps a corruption
of xljrj(t)os) or rotula ; but he used it only for
multiplication and in a manner which, as his
editor points out,^ is not only superfluous but
confusing for calculations on the abacus. Apart
from this system of signs, which may have come
directly or indirectly from Arabic sources, Ralph
bases himself entirely on the traditional authors
such as Gerbert and Herman of Reichenau.*

Adelard's Regulae Abaci are preserved in three

critiques sur I'Age et TOrigine rendus de rAcademie des

des Traductions Latines d'Ari- Sciences, xvi (1843) 162.

stote (ed. C. Jourdain, Paris ^ Pp, 85-133.

1843), p. 453. 3 p. gi . Cantor, i. 842. He

1 Formerly in the abbey used the sign as a mark to

of St. Victor, cod. 534, now indicate the figure reached in

in the National Library, a series of numbers to be

Fonds Latin 15120. Chasles multiplied,

just notices the existence of * Cf. Nagl, p. 100.
the book in the Comptes

£ 2

52 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

manuscripts at Ley den, Paris, and Rome, from which
the work was printed in 1881 by Prince Baldassare
Boncompagni in the fourteenth volume of the
BuUettino di BibHografia e di Storia delle Scienze
matematiche e fisiche.^ Adelard cites Gerbert
more than once, as the man qui hoc opus nostris
Gallis restituit et regulis succintim compositis illu-
stravit,^ but he appears to rest principally on the
book attributed to Boethius and on an anonymous
treatise on fractions written perhaps in Gerbert's
time.^ I cannot however profess to have examined
the relations of the work critically, a task for
which I am not competent. All that concerns
me is to show that he continues the line of abacists
of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Now Adelard left England towards the end of
the eleventh century and studied as a young man
at Tours, after which he engaged in teaching at
Laon. He left Laon probably not later than
1 109 in order to acquaint himself with the learning
of the Arabs — he had already travelled as far as
southern Italy, but now he spent perhaps seven
years in oriental travel.* At least in the preface
to his Quaestiones naturales he says that seven
years have passed since he quitted Laon, but it
does not follow that the whole time was spent in

1 Pp. 91-134. * See especially Mr. Has-

2 P. 91 lines 23, 24. kins's valuable paper in the

3 Printed by Bubnov pp. English Historical Review,
227-244. xxvi (191 I) 491-498.

Ill ADELARD OF BATH 53

the east. I must not here speak of the important
work which Adelard accomphshed in introducing
large ranges of Arab science into the Latin world ;
his translation of the astronomical tables of Al
Khuwarezmi or his translation, also from the
Arabic, of Euclid's Elements of Geometry. I only
advert to his place as a leading pioneer in a
process which altered the whole system of learning
and teaching in western Europe, in order to fix
the date of his treatise on the abacus. That work
belongs to a time before he had come into contact
with the oriental literature of science, and may
therefore with little hesitation be assigned to the
time when he was occupied in teaching, and
probably in attending lectures too, at Laon in
the first decade of the twelfth century.

Laon was then a famous place of study, perhaps
for twenty years the most important school in the
west.^ It seems to have been specially frequented
by mature scholars, such as were William of
Champeaux, Peter Abailard, and Gilbert of La
Porree. For this reason, I take it, Anselm the
theologian who gave the school its chief repute,
was known as the doctor doctorum. But the younger
students were not forgotten, and Anselm's brother
Ralph, the writer on the abacus, besides teaching
theology, gave instruction in the liberal arts.
Laon had for some time past had a close con-

1 Compare my Illustrations of the History of Medieval
Thought (1884) pp. Ill ff.

54 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

nexion with England. Helinand, a clerk of Edward
the Confessor/ was made bishop of the see about
1052 and held it for forty-six years until about
1098. It was apparently in his house ^ that
William of Corbeil, the future archbishop of
Canterbury, lived when engaged in the education
of the sons of Ralph the chancellor of the English
king.^ Some years later the great justiciar, bishop
Roger of Salisbury, sent to Laon his two nephews,
Alexander and Nigel, afterwards bishops of Lincoln
and Ely, and the younger of them treasurer. They
were probably there during the time when Waldric,
who had been chancellor to Henry I since 1103,
was bishop of Laon ; that is to say, after 1106.*
If Waldric's pontificate was tempestuous and not
altogether creditable, still the visits he paid to
England ^ helped to keep up the connexion.
A striking illustration of the impress made upon

1 Guibert de Vita sua, iii. 2 Ranulf had two sons whom he
(ed. G. Bourgin, Paris 1907) was bringing up with a view to
pp. 130 f. a clerical career about 1102 :

2 Here I follow the late Mr. see Mr. Archer's paper, ubi
T. A. Archer, whose paper in supra, p. 108. But it is on
the English Historical Re- the whole more probable that
view, ii (1887) 103-112, throws Herman, who wrote near the
much light on the relations middle of the century, con-
between England and Laon fused Ranulf with Ralph who
about 1 100. was chancellor from 1107 to

3 See Herman de Miraculis 11 23.

sanctae Mariae Laudunensis, * See Mr. H. W. C. Davis's

ii. 6, in Migne's Patrologia paper in the English Histori-

Latina, clvi. 977. Mr. Archer cal Review, xxvi (1911) ^y f.

believed Ralph to be Ranulf ^ Guibert iii. 4, 7 pp. 144,

Flambard, and it is known that 155.

Ill

ENGLISH SCHOLARS AT LAON

55

England by the school of Laon is furnished by
a narrative of a journey made to this country not
long after 1123 by a party of clergymen from Laon.
The cathedral church had been burned down
during the riots that accompanied the establish-
ment of a commune at Laon in 11 12, when bishop
Waldric was murdered. Some of the clergy of
the church at once set forth with their reliquary
and visited various parts of France to collect
offerings for the rebuilding.^ When the money
was exhausted, nearly twelve years afterwards,^

1 Herman i. 3-13 pp. 967-
972.

2 Herman describes this
visit as though it was paid in
the year following the journey
through France ; the latter
ended about St. Matthew's
day, and the former began on
the Monday before Palm Sun-
day : i. 13, ii. I pp. 972, 973.
But in the interval between
them the templum was ex
magna parte reparatum. This
requires a space of more than
six months. It should be
noticed that Herman inserts
the actual report of the clergy-
men sent to England in their
own words, and this report
speaks of archbishop William
of Corbeil as nobis nottssimus.
This cannot therefore be a
mistake as Mr. Archer sup-
posed, p. 105, but is a proof
that the report was written

later than 1123. This was
remarked by Wilmans, Monu-
menta Germaniae, Scriptores,
xii. 653 n. 2. There is no evi-
dence connecting William with
Canterbury before he was arch-
bishop. It is probable that
Herman when incorporating
the report in his work found
the dates of the days of the
journeys inserted in acalendar,
and erroneously inferred that
they took place in successive
years. The second journey
was made not long after 1123,
because it is related by Guibert
of Nogent in two chapters (12,
13) which interrupt the sequence
of events in the third book de
Vita sua and appear to have
been inserted in it at a date
subsequent to that at which
the rest of the work was
written. It was certainly
made before 1132 because the

56 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

they determined to send out a new deputation,
this time to England, to collect a fresh supply of
alms. Wherever they went they found a ready
welcome, in Canterbury, Salisbury, Exeter, and
elsewhere, because they came from a place asso-
ciated with the memory of the great master
Anselm,^ whose disciples were found or had
relations at all these places.

To sum up the results of our present enquiry,
the system of the Exchequer is a system of
reckoning based upon the abacus. Treatises on
this subject were written at Laon, one of them by
Adelard of Bath, who earned a great name as an
expounder of mathematics and physical science.
The school of Laon had an unequalled influence
on Enghsh scholars, one of whom lived to be
treasurer. And this influence was exerted precisely
at the time when the system of the abacus was
introduced into the English treasury. Let me add
one fact : Adelard of Bath is known to have
received a discharge from payment of the murder
fine levied upon the hundred in 1130.^ The
amount of his discharge was 4s. 6d., and imphes
that he held a small estate in Wiltshire. Such
exemptions were the rule in the case of persons
in the employment of the Court ; and if we infer

travellers found, apparently Christiana xi (ed. P. Piolin,

at Glastonbury, an old Laon 1874), 874.

student Agardus, or Algarus, 1 Herman iii. 6 p. 977; 12

who became bishop of Cou- p. 982 ; 13, 15 p. 983.

tances before that year: Gallia 2 RqIj Qf ^i Henry I p. 22.

Ill ADELARD AND THE EXCHEQUER 57

that Adelard's service was connected with the
Exchequer, the suggestion gains in probability
when we remember that the Exchequer was in
existence before 1118 and that Nigel or Neal,
the future treasurer, a former student at Laon,
was actively engaged in the business of the
Court at least as early as 1126 or 1127.^ In order
to avoid misunderstanding I should explain that
I am not claiming that the treatises on the
abacus in themselves would help in working
accounts. Addition and subtraction were too
elementary to find a place in most of the treatises
I have seen ; the student was assumed to have
mastered these processes already. But it was the
practical f amiUarity with the instrument which was
important, and it was the introduction of this instru-
ment in the form of the Exchequer which made an
epoch in the history of the English Treasury.

It has long been disputed whether the Exchequer
came to England from Normandy or conversely
passed to Normandy from England. If the argu-
ments which I have submitted obtain acceptance,
it wiU result that the Exchequer is a system of
account rendered possible by a simple mathematical
apparatus which Englishmen learned in France.

^ The date, 1 124, considered ness, is inadmissible, because

probable by the editor (p. 541) Henry I left England after

for the charter dated at Lon- Whitsuntide in 11 23 and did

don in the Chronicon Mona- not return until September

sterii de Abingdon, ii. 164, in 1126.
which Nigel appears as wit-

58 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

It was established in England under a king who
was also duke of Normandy ; and in very few
years it is found existing in Normandy. Until
lately the statement of Thomas Stapleton and
Leopold Delisle ^ that there was no evidence for
an Exchequer in Normandy until the reign of
Henry II held the field ; but in 1899 Mr. Round
printed a document which proved that pleas were
heard before the barons of the Exchequer in
Normandy about the year 1130,^ and mentioned
a judgement given by John bishop of Lisieux and
Robert de Haia and many others at the Exchequer.^
This introduces a very interesting combination.
John, who was a man of good education, had been
archdeacon of Sees, when he and his bishop Serlo
were compelled by the oppression of Robert of
Belesme to flee into England in 1103.* He was

1 Bibliotheque de TEcole Round identified with a man
des Chartes, 2nd series, v. mentioned as dead in the
268, 270. Roll of 31 Henry I, p. 159, is

2 See his paper on Bernard more probably the treasurer
the King's Scribe, in the Eng- of the same name and place,
lish Historical Review, xiv. whom Mr. Haskins has found
417-430. The document is to have lived to be chaplain to
printed on p. 426. The de- Stephen. See his paper on The
scription of it given by A. Administration of Normandy
Heales, The Records of Merton under Henry I in the English
Priory (1898) p. 10, abounds HistoricalReview, xxiv (1909)
in mistakes. 225.

3 Unfortunately we cannot * Ordericus Vitalis, Histo-
fix the date with precision ria ecclesiastica xi. 7, 31 vol.
to a time before 1130, because iv. 192, 274 f., ed. A. Le
Robert of fivreux, whom Mr. Prevost.

in THE EXCHEQUER IN NORMANDY 59

already well known to king Henry, who made him
one of his chaplains and called him into his
counsels.^ John was thus, as Mr. Round points
out ^, brought into constant association with bishop
Roger of Salisbury and with the staff of officials
who reorganized the administration of England.
The connexion was not broken when archdeacon
John became bishop of Lisieux in 1107. His
nephew, also John and also archdeacon of Sees,
is found hearing a plea in England in company
with the keeper of the king's seal and other
officials at a date before 1124 when he became
bishop of Sees.^ Thus we find the uncle trained
in the EngUsh Chapel in England and acting as
head of the Norman Exchequer about 1130, and
we find the nephew holding rank in the English
Court above the keeper of the seal before 1124. The
process is from England to Normandy, not from
Normandy to England.

This discovery, I beUeve, sets the facts in their
true relation ; but it would not be proper that
I should pass over in silence the statements in the
Dialogue which deal with the subject. The
Exchequer, says bishop Richard,

4 is said to have taken its origin from the very conquest
of the kingdom by king William, though its principle is

1 ' Inter praecipuos regis est : ' ibid., p. 275.
capellanos computatus est, 2 ubi supra, p. 427.
atque ad regalia inter fami- ^ Ibid., p. 428.
liares consilia saepe accitus * Dialogus i. 4 p. 176.

6o THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER in

derived from the Exchequer over sea. But they differ in
many points and wellnigh in the most important. There
are some also who beheve that the use of the Exchequer
existed under the EngHsh kings, and they adduce evidence
for this view from the fact that husbandmen now worn
out with years on those estates which are called crown
lands — men whose memory on these matters is hoary —
have learned from their fathers and know perfectly well
how much of blank farm they are bound to pay for every
pound. But this manner of knowledge relates to the
payment of the farm, not to the sitting of the Exchequer.

Here I may observe that this remark shows that
the author understood the point of the argument.^
He is discussing the question whether the Ex-
chequer is of Norman or English origin, and he
remarks with perfect justice that the question
whether in old times payment was or was not
made with tested coins has nothing whatever to
do with the question whether a particular form of
board of audit of accounts then held its sessions.^
The bishop continues :

But those who say that blank farm began in the times
of the English kings are confronted by the fact that
Domesday Book, which contains a careful survey of the

1 Sumpta tamen ipsius ra- utriusque origo, it may be
tione a scaccario transmarino. doubted whether origo means

2 This was duly noted by more than ' basis ' or ' prin-
Dr. Liebermann, Einleitung ciple ' ; for, he adds, ' what-
in den Dialogus de Scaccario, ever has to be accounted for
p. log. in the greater Exchequer is

3 When in i. 2 p. 172 he paid in the lesser, and what
says of the Treasury and is paid in the one is accounted
Exchequer, una tamen est for in the other.'

Ill BLANK FARM AND THE EXCHEQUER 6i

whole kingdom, and gives the value of all the estates
both in the time of king Edward and in the time of king
William, under whom it was drawn up, makes absolutely
no mention of blank farm ; wherefore it seems probable
that after that survey was made in the time of king
William, the system of blank farms was estabhshed for
reasons which I shall explain.

Nothing has so much discredited bishop Richard
as his assertion that blank farm is not mentioned
in Domesday Book.^ That book was kept in the
Treasury and was habitually consulted as evi-
dence for the charges due from land. If the
bishop, as we are bound to believe, rose to be
treasurer from subordinate office in the Exchequer,
he could not fail to have often referred to Domes-
day Book. He ought therefore to have been
aware that, as I have had occasion to mention
before,^ blank money, money ad arsuram, and
many similar expressions occur repeatedly. But
the fact that a man had occasion to consult
Domesday for particular purposes does not imply
that he made a study of the book ; and he might
frequently refer to it without noticing a matter
which had no bearing on the subject of his enquiry.
Still the fact remains that he committed himself
to the untrue statement that blank farm does
not appear in Domesday. The last editors of the
Dialogue are so much troubled by the mistake
that they resort to the extreme course of rejecting

1 See the pungent strictures mune of London, pp. 65 ff.
of Mr. Round in The Com- 2 See above, pp. 30 f .

62 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

the passage in which it occurs as an interpolation.
They point out correctly enough that besides
being untrue, it destroys the continuity of the argu-
ment/ but I fear they are applying a standard of
literary cohesion which few medieval writers
would satisfy. However this may be, there is no
doubt that bishop Richard regarded the practice
of testing money as the invention of his uncle,
bishop Roger of Salisbury, as appears from another
passage of an historical nature which in one sense
completes its statement, though in another it intro-
duces something of a contradiction. I have already
quoted a portion of it giving the tradition as to
the manner in which payments were formerly made
in kind,^ but I must now read the whole.

3 As it has been handed down to us by our fathers,
in the early state of the kingdom after the Conquest
the kings received from their manors not sums of gold
or silver but only payments in kind {victualia) which
supplied the necessaries for the daily use of the king's
household. And the officials appointed for the business
knew how much was due from each manor. Besides this,
counted money came in from the pleas of the kingdom
and from payments by agreement and from the cities
and castles where husbandry was not employed ; and
this was used for the knights* pay and for presents to
them and for other necessary purposes. This practice
then prevailed during the whole reign of king William I
and down to the time of king Henry his son ; so that

1 Notes to the Dialogus, is a slip for ' former *.
p. 171, and Introduction, 2 g^g above, p. 27.
P- 33> where the word ' latter ' ^ Dialogus i. 7 pp. 193-195.

Ill THE TRADITION OF THE EXCHEQUER 63

I have myself seen people who have seen provisions
brought up to the court at appointed times from the
king's manors : and the officials of the king's household
knew precisely from which counties wheat was due, and
from which various kinds of fleshmeat and horses' forage
and other requisites. Now when these were paid according
to the appointed manner of each thing, the king's officials
reckoned them to the sheriff, reducing them to a sum of
money, as

for a measure of wheat for bread for 100 men is.

for the carcase of a grass-fed ox is.

for a ram or ewe 4d.

for provender for 20 horses 4d.

But as time went on, when king Henry was engaged
abroad or in remote parts of the country in putting down
rebellion, it became necessary that he should have a sum
necessary for his expenditure in counted money. And
at the same time there poured into the king's court
a complaining crowd of husbandmen, or — what was more
disagreeable to him — often met him as he passed by,
holding up their ploughshares as a sign of the decay
of agriculture. So the king, moved by their complaints,
acting on the advice of his councillors, sent through the
kingdom men whom he knew to be wise and fitted for the
purpose, in order that they might go round and inspect
each manor with their own eyes, and then, when they had
made a valuation of the payments in kind, reduce them
to a sum of money. And they decided that the sheriff of
the county should be responsible at the Exchequer for the
total of these amounts ; with this new provision, that he
should pay at a rate {ad scalam), that is 6d. for every
counted pound. For they thought that in course of
time it might well happen that money which was once
good might deteriorate [by use]. Nor were they deceived.
In fact they were compelled to require that the farm of
the manors should be paid not only at a rate but by weight

64 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

(ad pensum), which could not be done except by adding
a good deal. This rule of payment was maintained at the
Exchequer for several (plures) years, so that you will often
find in the old yearly rolls of that king the words ' In
thesauro c. libras ad scalam ' or ' in thesauro c. libras ad
pensum '.

Meanwhile there arose a discreet man, far seeing in
counsel, clear in speech, who quickly rose to the front,
by the grace of God, in all the affairs of state. ... He
was called to the Court by the said king, and though
unknown yet not unnoble he taught by his example

How poor estate may breed consummate men.

He then grew in favour with the monarch and with the
clergy and people, and was made bishop of Salisbury.
He filled the highest offices and honours in the kingdom
and had very large knowledge of the Exchequer, which
without doubt, as is manifest from the rolls, flourished
under him exceedingly. From the drippings of his
abundance I have received by tradition what little
I know. . . . He then by the king's command took his
seat at the Exchequer, and when he had been for some
years there, he found that the method of payment em-
ployed did not fully satisfy the revenue, because although
the system took account of the number and weight of
the coins it did not regard their fineness. For it did not
follow that if a man paid for a pound 20 shillings corre-
sponding to a pound's weight, he therefore paid a pound
of silver ; for he might have paid in coins mixed with
copper or brass, unless they were tested. In order
therefore to provide for the advantage of the king and
of the state, the king took counsel on the matter and
ordered that an assay or test of the farm should be made
in the manner which I have described.

In this passage bishop Richard gives a history
of the development of the fiscal system, which is

Ill THE TRADITION OF THE EXCHEQUER 65

exactly that which we should assume on a priori
grounds. From payments in kind we pass to pay-
ments in money, from Naturalwirtschaft to Geld-
wirtschaft ; then as the coins are worn, they have
to be made up by a vantage-payment of 6d. in the
pound or else weighed ; then as they are debased,
they have to be tested. Blank farm therefore
appears as the last and most scientific method
adopted. Since however we know that it is found
in Domesday Book, evidently we cannot ascribe its
invention to the genius of bishop Roger. Indeed,
in the first passage I quoted, the author speaks
of blank farm as within the experience of men of
great age, who had learned it from their fathers,
a statement which takes one back beyond the
days of the great bishop. His historical account
therefore does not agree with the facts.

Thomas Stapleton, seventy years ago, insisted
on the English origin of blank payments.

^ Blanch-money and blanch-ferms were consequent on
the monetary system of the Anglo-Saxons. With them
a certain number of privileged moneyers in the principal
cities and walled burghs had the right, on payment of a fee,
to have dies cast, or engraved, for the purpose of coining ;
but as a check upon any falsification on their part, the
mint in the royal city of Winchester was made the general
standard for the coin of the country. ... In Normandy
the coin in general circulation was from the foreign
mints of Angiers, Mans, and Tours ; so that the same

1 Observations on the Great edition of Magni Rotuli Scac-
RoUs of the Exchequer of carii Normanniae, i. pp. xv,
Normandy, prefixed to his xvi.

1376 F

66 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

means did not exist of testing the money paid into the
Treasury by a fixed standard.

This statement is substantially correct, though
Le Mans after 1063 would hardly perhaps rank
as a foreign city and there are some obscure traces
of a coinage at Rouen. ^ Still, it may be accepted
as deciding the question whether payments in blank
money are of Norman or English derivation. There
is no trace of any practice of testing money in
Normandy. But this has nothing to do with the
origin of the Exchequer in its technical sense.
The assay is far older than the Exchequer, and
the Exchequer first came into existence when the
chequered table was arranged for working the
accounts about the middle of the reign of Henry I.
Bishop Stubbs,"^ accepting Stapleton's conclu-
sions, pointed to the fact, which I have noticed,^
that in Domesday the farm * is in many places
described as settled in king Edward's time ' as
seeming ' to prove the existence of a central
department of finance before the Conquest from
which the peculiarities of the English Exchequer
were derived ' ; and he considered this to dispose
of the contention that the institution ' was bodily
imported from Normandy \ In like manner he
found no evidence to connect the Exchequer with
Sicily. The name does not appear there and the

1 Delisle, ubi supra, pp. ^ In a note to § 126 of the
186 f. Constitutional History.

3 Above, pp. 28 £f.

Ill THE EXCHEQUER AND NORMANDY 67

financial procedure is claimed to have a Saracenic
origin. Bishop Stubbs was therefore incUned to
trace any points of connexion between the systems
of the two kingdoms to the presence of EngUsh
administrators, such as Robert of Salisbury, the
chancellor of king Roger, and Thomas Brown,
who was employed both in Sicily and in England.
The number of men from England — it would be
premature to call them all EngUshmen — who visited
the South Italian kingdom, and who were employed
in its service both in church and state, has recently
been abundantly illustrated by Mr. Haskins.^ But
while it may be admitted that the Saracenic
model was not preserved in Sicily unaltered, and
while there are points of similarity between the
Sicilian and the EngUsh systems, it would be
probably unwise to press the analogy too far,
especially since we have absolutely no evidence
as to the form in which the Sicihan accounts
were produced and audited.^ All that can be
said with confidence is that the diwan or duana
which dealt with finance makes its appearance
in Sicily at a date somewhat later than that
at which we find the Exchequer estabUshed in
England.

One caution should be added. If we follow
Bishop Stubbs in believing that ' a central depart-

^ England and Sicily in the lish Historical Review, xxvi
Twelfth Century, in the Eng- (191 1) 435-443.

2 Ibid., pp. 651-655.
F 2

68 THE RECKONING OF THE EXCHEQUER iii

ment of finance ' existed in England before the
Norman conquest, we are not to suppose that it
was set up by Englishmen. Henry the treasurer
of Edward the Confessor is shown by his name
to have been a foreigner. And under the Norman
kings the administration of the country was almost
wholly in the hands of men who came from abroad.
The great bishop Roger was a native of Caen, and
among the leading officials of the twelfth century
in England we shall hardly find one of English
stock.^ While therefore we join issue with Rudolf
von Gneist in so far as he supposes the Exchequer
to have been established in Normandy earlier than
in England,^ there is nothing to object to in his
statement that

1 Bishop Richard may have
had an English mother : see
Liebermann, Einleitung, p. 30.

2 Das englische Verwal-
tungsrecht (Berlin 1867), i.
194, 201. It is unlucky that
Gneist should have repeated
the statement that an original
roll of the Exchequer of Rouen
of the year 1061 was produced
in 1587 ; for Dehsle long ago
showed that the word Ex-
chequer did not occur in a
better text of the document
cited, and that in any case
the document could not be-
long to the time of William
the Conqueror : ubi supra,
p. 268. It mentions livres

tournoys, which were not cur-
rent in Normandy until the
time of Philip Augustus : ibid.,
p. 187* Professor Heinrich
Brunner, Die Entstehung der
Schwurgerichte, Berlin 1871,
p. 150 note 2, pointed out
Gneist 's mistake ; but still
maintained that the Ex-
chequer existed in Normandy
earlier than in England. He
sought to account for the
absence of any evidence in
support of his opinion by the
fact that few Norman docu-
ments are preserved before
the middle of the twelfth
century.

Ill FOREIGN NOMENCLATURE 69

^ the whole terminology of the Exchequer is a Romanized
jargon, both the names of the officers, justiciarii, haroncs,
vicccomitcs, ballivi, halliva, serjeanteria, and the names
of the things dealt with, amerciamentum, miscricordia,
finis, forisfactura, 7naritagium, custuma, prisa, relcvium,
tallagium, argentum blancum, catalla, feffamentum, tene-
mentum, tenura ; as well as the terms of reckoning,
compotus, quietantia, talea, visus, computate, libcratio,
deliberate, superplus, summa, and of procedure, sum-
monitio, warrantwn, breve, rectum, &c.

This characteristic of our language is very well
known ; it has been fully illustrated by the
historians of English law — *we must ... go as
far as the gallows if we would find an English
institution ' ; ^ — but it is desirable to repeat it in
order that no false inferences should be drawn
from the fact that the Exchequer is first found
in operation on English soil.

1 Das englische Verwal- 41 f. The string of words is

tungsrecht, i. 202. The pas- taken almost entirely from

sage had previously appeared Madox, iv. 5 p. 127.

in the author's work, Das heu- 2 p^ Pollock and F. W.

tige englische Verfassungs-und Maitland, The History of

Verwaltungsrecht, i (1857) English Law (1895), i. 58 if.

IV

THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT

I HAVE spoken of the Treasury as fixed at
Winchester at a time before the Exchequer came
into existence. It continued there long afterwards,
for there is no ground for supposing that there
were two Treasuries, one at Winchester and the
other at Westminster. The truth is that the
word thesaurus denotes several things. Primarily
of course it means treasure. The king was con-
stantly travelUng from one place to another,
and he necessarily required money to be supplied
him for his expenses. This money, this thesaurus,
we find, as soon as we have documentary evidence,
he ordered to be transmitted from Winchester to
various places, for instance to Southampton ^ or
London ^ or Carlisle.^ A good example occurs in
the roll of the 28th year of Henry II (1181-2),*
where £6 were paid ' for the hire of carts which
carried the treasure from London to Winchester
and part of the same treasure to Salisbury and
again to Porchester, and for many businesses of
the Treasury while the king was sojourning on

1 Roll of 7 Henry II p. 59. ^ Roll of 4 Henry II p. 175.

2 Roll of 8 Henry II p. 35. « P. 139.

IV TREASURE AND THE TREASURY yl

the coast \ There is no question here of any tem-
porary treasuries, but simply of furnishing chests
of money for current needs. Such notices are of
great interest for estabUshing the king's move-
ments at a time when precise information from
other sources is frequently lacking ; but they tell
us nothing about the removal of the Treasury but
only of some money deposited in it.

In the second place thesaurus means a place
where money and other valuables are stored, that
is to say, strictly speaking, the Treasury at
Winchester. But when the Exchequer was held
as a rule at Westminster,^ it was necessary that
there should be a safe place for keeping the money
which was paid in at the two yearly sessions of
the board. This place also was loosely called the
Treasury ; but the author of the Dialogue, writing
about 1 178, seems to avoid the name, and desig-
nates it the Lower Exchequer or the Receipt.
I take it that Lower Exchequer is a descriptive
term employed by Bishop Richard for the purpose
of distinction, but one which never acquired
official currency. The Receipt is the recepta
thesauri, the place where treasure is received ;
but the ambiguity of the word thesaurus led to its
being translated in course of time as the Receipt
of the Treasury. Later on it became known as

1 There are exceptions. The below, p. 72 note 2. In 1170 it
Exchequer of Michaelmas 1 164 was at Winchester : see Round,
was held at Northampton, Feudal England, pp. 503-508.

^2 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

the Exchequer of Receipt or the Receipt of the
Exchequer.^

Now this Receipt in the twelfth century only
existed so long as the Exchequer was in session
at Easter and Michaelmas. The avcha thesauri was
then brought from Winchester to the appointed
place.^ When the audit was concluded the trea-
sure was packed in chests and hutches and sent
to the Treasury at Winchester ; and at Winchester
the Treasury remained probably so long as the
king kept his continental possessions,^ when it
was necessary to have a store of coins at a place
convenient for their export.

In treating of the Exchequer however this
central Treasury has a subordinate interest. It
is the Receipt with which we are immediately
concerned. But both Treasury and Receipt were
under a common administration, that of the
treasurer and chamberlains, who being principally
occupied at the Board of Exchequer employed
deputies to act for them in the business of receiving
money. The staff of the office and the work done
in it are fully described in the Dialogue.

1 Madox viii. 3 p. 182. Norh[ampton] vii. s. & i. d.,

2 Thus in the Roll of 10 p. 28.

Henry H, under Hampshire, ^ ggg Mr^ Round's paper on

Et ad conducend' archam the Early Custody of Domes-

thesauri de Wint' ad Lund' day Book in The Antiquary,

V. s. & viii. d., p. 25 ; Et ad xvi (1887) 10 ff., from which

portand' archam thesauri ad I have borrowed some of my

festum sancti Michaelis ad references.

IV THE OFFICERS OF THE RECEIPT 73

^ There is the treasurer's clerk, and there are the two
chamberlains' knights. And there is a knight who may
be called the silverer, because his duty is to take charge
of the assay of silver.

This official seems not yet to have had a definite

title : he was the v^eigher or, as he was afterwards

called, the pesour.

There is also the fusor [or melter],^ who makes the assay.
There are also four tellers ^ to count the silver, and there is
the usher of the Treasury and the watchman. And these
are their duties. When the money has been counted and
put into forels [or leather cases *] by hundred pounds, the
treasurer's clerk seals them and records in writing the
amount received, the name of the payer, and the reason
for the payment (quantum vel a quo vel oh quam causam
receperit).

The treasurer's clerk, it should be noticed, has no
duties outside the Receipt, of which he draws up
the roll. A fragment of the receipt roll of the 31st
year of Henry II was printed in 1899, and deserves
a closer study than it has received. From the skin
on which the roll was written it came to be known
as the pell,® and the treasurer's clerk continued

1 Dialogus i. 3 p. 172. an ambiguous term. The

2 In modem times he was forel was used down to modem
the surveyor of the meltings times for keeping charters,
and clerk of the irons. and there are specimens of

3 In the roll of i Richard I, them in the University Ar-
p. 178, ten tellers were em- chives.

ployed in counting the tenths ^ Madox, xxiv. ii p. 739,

paid at Salisbury. mentions a specimen of the

^ Foruli are translated by 9th year of Henry III.
Madox * binns ', but this is

74 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

under the name of the clerk of the pells down to

1834.^

He also inscribes ^ the tallies of that receipt made by
the chamberlains [or rather by their servant the tally-
cutter^], and he seals, if he pleases, not only the bags
of money but also the chests and every forel.

Beside him sat the clerk of master Thomas
Brown, of whom we shall hear more in the future,
to make notes of receipts and expenditure.^

The duty of the knights, who are also called chamber-
lains, because they minister for the chamberlains, is this :
They carry the keys of the chests ; for each chest has two
locks of a different pattern so that the key of one does not
fit the other, and these men bear the keys of them. Every
chest has round a fixed strap, which when the locks are
closed is sealed on the top with the treasurer's seal, so that
no one can obtain access to it without their joint agreement.
Also it is their business to weigh the money after it has
been counted and placed in wooden skippets^ by hundreds
of shillings, that there may be no mistake in the counting,
and then finally to put them in forels by hundreds of
pounds. If any skippet is found to have too little, no
addition is made of the estimated deficiency, but the
whole amount in question is put back into the heap of
coins awaiting calculation. . . . Also the chamberlains
make tallies of the monies received, and in common with
the treasurer's clerk they pay out treasure by the king's

1 4 & 5 William IV c. 15. exhibited in the museum of

2 See the Notes to the Dia- the Public Record Office, but
logus, pp. 167 f. these were used for keeping

3 Dialogus i, 5 p. 181. deeds. See the Catalogue of
* i. 6 p. 190. Manuscripts and other Ob-
s Some turned skippets are jects in the Museum, pp. 93 f.

IV CHAMBERLAINS AND TELLERS 75

writ or by order of the barons, but only after taking
counsel with their superiors. These three officers [the
treasurer's clerk and the chamberlains] are sent all
together or in turn with the treasure when there is occasion
[that is when the money paid in is removed to the Treasury
at Winchester, or when it is taken thence to any place
where the king may require it]. These three have chief
concern in all things that concern the Lower Exchequer.

It is then explained that when money is paid by
the king's writ the precise amount is paid and
the recipient counts the coins. If there is any
deficiency he reports the fact ; the money is
counted by the tellers and the balance made good.
But if he has passed the door of the Treasury, no
matter who he may be or how great the loss, he
has no claim to compensation. The text proceeds :

^ The duty of the four tellers is this : when the money
to be counted is paid into the Exchequer, one of them
carefully mixes the whole, so that the better and the
worse coins may not be separated but mixed together
so that they may balance the weight ; and when this
is done, the chamberlain weighs in a scale as much as
is necessary against the Exchequer pound. If the
number of pence exceed twenty shillings by more than
six pence, the money is deemed too bad to be accepted ;
but if the excess is six pence or less, the money is taken
and is then counted by the tellers by hundreds of shillings.
If however the money is paid from a farm and is to be
tested then forty-four shillings from the heap are mixed
together and put into a purse, which is sealed by the
sheriff, in order that afterwards a test, commonly called
the assay, may be made.

1 Dialogus i. 4 p. 174.

76 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

The pennies current in the twelfth century were
generally far below the proper standard either of
weight or fineness, and it was necessary to protect
the king's revenue from loss through this cause.
Two alternative methods are mentioned in the
passage I have just quoted. One was to put
a pound weight into the scales and to reject any
money offered of which more than 246 pence were
required to make a balance ; any money which
did not exceed that Umit of deficiency in weight
was accepted, but the sheriff who paid in the
money was not given full credit for it, and when
his account was settled, a shilling was deducted
from every pound. This was the rule for payments
by tale (numero).

The other method was that of the assay, which
was performed by the weigher and the melter. The
procedure for its conduct brings us at more than
one point into the upper Exchequer; but as it
was strictly a matter concerning money and not
accounts it may be appropriately described here.
I summarize the description in the Dialogue.

1 The weigher brings the purse of 44 shillings into the
Exchequer, mixes them up, and weighs the required
number in the scales against a pound weight. He then
counts the coins and puts 20 shillings into a cup, replacing
the other 24 in the purse. Two pence are given to the

1 Dialogus i. 6 pp. 190 f . ; cf . Introduction to the Dialogus,
pp. 28 if.

IV THE ASSAY 77

melter as his fee.^ Then the sheriff with two other sheriffs
appointed to act with him repair with the weigher to the
furnace where the test is to be made. The work is now
taken up by the melter, who counts the coins and puts
them in a cupel of red-hot ashes. He then reduces them
to a Hquid mass, blowing and purifying the silver. But
he has to take care not to cease until the operation is
complete nor to injure or destroy the metal by excessive
boiling ; for in the one case the king, in the other the
sheriff, would be the loser.

If the silver was not sufficiently purified, it would
be reported at above its real value, and so
the revenue would suffer : if it was manipulated
too much, it would be reduced below that value,
so that the sheriff would receive less credit than
was due to him. The process had to be carefully
watched by the persons sent from the Exchequer
to supervise the assay.

When the test is completed, the weigher takes it to the
barons and weighs the ingot against a pound weight before
their eyes. He then adds coins from the purse to balance
the scales, and writes their number with chalk upon the
ingot, as Yorkshire : The pound burnt so many or so many
pence}" If the sheriff challenges the test as excessive,
whether from overheating or from the infusion of lead,

1 This fee long persisted, but the melter received 2d.

Madox, ix. 2 p. 191 6, gives for his pains.

an instance from the Roll of 2 jjje ingot was used for

10 John of £57 8s. being making plate for churches or

blanched by £5 os. 7jd. At for the king's service, or else

IS. 9d. in the pound the de- sent abroad to be coined in

duction would be £5 os. 5jd., Normandy : Dialogus i. 3

p. 174.

78 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

then another 20 shillings are taken from the purse, and
a second assay follows.

This accounts for the reservation of 44 shillings,
to allow for the possibility of a second assay, with
four shillings over so as to give a margin for
deficiency and to pay the melter's fee.^ I leave it
to the metallurgist to explain the part taken by
lead in the process. A more practical question is,
what the assay was intended to do : was it to
reduce the metal to fine silver or merely to sterling
with 18 pennyweights of alloy to the pound ? On
the one side it is argued that the Exchequer would
endeavour to obtain as large an amount of bullion
from the sheriff as it could : on the other, it is
proved that the deduction for the assay, technically
known as the ' combustion \ varied from igd. to
as little as one penny ; and if even in a single
instance the combustion meant a loss of only one
penny, it is clear that no attempt can have been
made to reduce the ingot to fine silver,^ The
obscurity which without doubt remains in the
description in the Dialogue may reasonably be ex-
plained from the author's admitted unfamiliarity
with the details of the process of the assay.^

The usher's duties are next described. He has to

1 The melter was not paid the Dialogus, pp. 30 f ., and in
more than his single fee of Parow's Compotus Vicecomi-
2d. : Dialogus i. 6 pp. 191 f . tis, pp. 20 f.

2 See the discussion of the ^ Nee sollicitus super hits
subject in the Introduction to fui : Dialogus i. 6 p. 193.

IV THE ASSAY 79

keep the door and to supply the forels and rolls and
tallies and all the other small requisites, the wooden
skippets, the knives for cutting tallies, the purses
and straps, everything except the ink which by
an ancient privilege was supplied, for a charge
of 2s. at each session of the Exchequer, by the
sacrist of Westminster abbey. It has been main-
tained that Westminster is here a mistake for Win-
chester,^ and no doubt it is the sort of alteration
that a later transcriber might easily make at a time
when the Treasury had come to be settled at West-
minster. But in fact the cathedral church at
Winchester was unconnected with the royal palace,
whereas the abbey church at Westminster was in
origin the chapel of the palace ; and as the king's
chaplains formed the writing staff of the govern-
ment, it would not be unnatural that the ink
should be supplied by their servant, the sacrist.

The last official mentioned is the watchman.

Then we are given a list of the liveries or allow-
ances paid ' so long as the Exchequer lasts, that

1 Notes to the Dialogus, has found an example (ibid.
p. 170. The argument is that p. 506) of its employment
the term mator ecclesia is under Henry IH with refer-
inapplicable to Westminster, ence to Westminster Abbey.
But Mr. G. J. Turner has Mr. Turner, p. 288, showed
pointed out, in the Enghsh that in the 4th year of Ed-
Historical Review, xix (1904) ward I the sacrist of West-
287, that it is used by WilHam minster received a sum of 4od.
fitzStephen of conventual half-yearly for ink supplied to
churches, and Mr. C. Johnson the Exchequer.

8o THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

is from the day on which it is assembled until
the day on which there is a general departure '.
This includes some of the officials of the Upper
Exchequer whom I would rather speak of in a
later connexion. But the principle of the pay-
ments may be stated generally now. The laymen,
who are knights, and have nothing to do with
writing, because presumably they cannot read or
write, — they have to do with tallies and things of
that sort — ^receive eight pence a day ; and the
keepers of the keys, the deputy chamberlains,
claim to be provided with horses and arms, in
order that they may be able to perform their
duties when they are sent with the treasure to its
destination. The writers, who are all clergymen,
are paid five pence ; probably they also received
emoluments as chaplains. The inferior officials
have a correspondingly lower allowance. The four
tellers receive three pence if they are at London ;
but two pence if they are at Winchester, ' for
they are usually taken from thence.' The watch-
man has one penny, and a halfpenny for a light
about the Treasury. The usher of the Receipt has
no livery, but a number of incidental fees : two
pence for every writ of issue, two pence for every
forel, five shiUings at Michaelmas for the wood
of the tallies. It is also suggested that he is not
so much an official of the king as a servant of the
treasurer and chamberlains * in keeping the door
of their house '. The weigher and the melter stand

IV THE OFFICERS' EMOLUMENTS 8i

also on a peculiar footing : the one receives a livery
of twelve pence a day, the other of five pence.^
The pecuUarity of their position is that, though
acting in the Treasury, they are not Uke the other
officials deputies of persons in the Exchequer.
Bishop Richard is not sure how to rank them :
he thinks they belong rather to the upper than
to the lower branch,^ but admits that they have
no appointed seats at the Exchequer.^ Possibly
they were at first local craftsmen who were given
a higher rate of payment because their employ-
ment was only occasional. But they came to be
provided for in the same way as all the other
knights, below the rank of the great officers, who
had their place in the Exchequer ; that is, they
were granted lands in serjeanty.^

An account translated by Madox^ from a pell
of the Receipt of the ninth year of Henry III
shows how the liveries continued unaltered down
to the thirteenth century.^

The liveries of the ministers of the Exchequer of the
term of St. Michael in the ninth year of king Henry III

1 Perhaps this is a mistake p. 741.

for 4d., which is the livery re- ^ xxiv. 14 pp. 741 f.

ceived by the melter in 1181 : ^ In the following quotation

Roll of 27 Henry II, p. 129. I have used Arabic numerals

2 Dialogus i. 3 p. 172. and have reduced marks and

3 Ibid. i. 6 p. 190. multiples of shillings and
* For the weigher see Round pence into a common reckon-
in the English Historical Re- ing. I have also inserted the
view, xxvi (1911) 724-727, and daily wages.

for the melter, Madox xxiv. 14

1376 r.

82 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

for fourscore days, to wit, from the feast of St. Michael
until the Monday next after the feast of St. Lucia,
including both those days :

To three scribes [5d. a day] £5.

To the two knights of the chamberlains

[8d. aday] 5. 6s. 8d.

To John de Windresor [the weigher, is.

a day] 4.

To the fusour [5d. a day] i. 13. 4

To Simon Druel ^ [5d. a day] i. 13. 4

To the four tellers [3d. a day each] 4.

To the watchman [id. a day] and for light

[Jd. a day] 10.

Before passing to the chamber of account it
will be convenient to say something of the money
in use in England in Norman times. The only
currency employed was that of the silver penny,
and the pound was a term of account meaning
240 of these pennies. The reckoning was based
on weight, what we now call Troy weight : ' twenty
pennyweights make an ounce ; twelve ounces
make a pound.' But in money the values of the
intermediate stages, as they became finally settled,
were inverted, so that in the twelfth century, as
now, twelve pennies make a shilling, and twenty
shillings make a pound. But the idea of weight
was not forgotten, and we often find mention of
the ounce of silver meaning twenty pence. Eight
ounces make a mark, that is 13s. 4d. But there

1 He was the usher. In 2 received the office; Madox
Henry III William Druel had xxiv. 4 p. 720 h.

IV MONEY AND WEIGHT 83

were no coins corresponding to any of these
denominations. When about 1144-1147, in Italy,
the treasurer of St. Ambrose at Milan wrote to
one of the canons,

Duas marcas argenti, in nn frusta [packets] divisas,
per negociatorem .B. de Zurla tibi transmit to, minimum
frustum una[m] uncia[m], aliud aliquantulum mains duas
uncias et dimidium habet, tercium mains secundo ini
uncias, quart um mains aliis marcam habet et dimidiam
unciam/

he means four packets containing respectively
2od., 5od., 8od., and i7od. These proportions
might be transferred to weights of gold, so that,
the ratio of gold to silver in England being 9 : i,^
the ounce of gold equalled 15s., and the mark of
gold £6. But neither the pound nor the mark
nor the ounce was a coin, any more than the guinea
is at the present day.

The Norman name for the English silver penny
was esterlin. It is found as early as about iioo.^
It was necessary to use a distinctive term, because
the EngHsh penny was worth two pennies of
Le Mans and four pennies of Rouen, Angers, and
Tours. The meaning of the name is unknown.

1 J. von Pflugk-Harttung, des Chartes, 2nd series, v. 207.
Iter Italicum (Stuttgart 1883), ^ See a document of the
p. 4S1. abbey of Preaux, dated either

2 In Normandy in 1180 the 1085 or 1104, in Round's
ratio was 7i : i. See Delisle Calendar of Documents pre-
in the Bibliotheque de TJilcole served in France, p. in.

G 2

84 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

but it certainly has nothing to do with the Easter-
lings or German merchants, as most books tell
us.^ The word appears in Latin as sterlingus or
sterlingo, and down to the latter part of the
thirteenth century a sterling meant an English
penny. Not unnaturally the pound of sterlings,
meaning a pound's weight of 240 pennies, became
shortened into the pound sterling ; but to this
day the word sterling has the specific meaning of
English currency as opposed to any currency
abroad. You cannot speak of a franc sterling
or a dollar sterUng.

The oholus was a halfpenny, but its meaning
was sometimes transferred to the half of any
specified denomination.^ Under Richard I there
is mention of a mark of gold de ohol\is\ Musce or
Muscii,^ which is made equal to 10 marks of silver.
These weights must have been of unusually fine
gold, but the name by which they are described
has never been satisfactorily explained.*

1 This derivation comes lively. In Normandy the
down from the antiquaries of obolus equalled 5s. of Tours :
queen Elizabeth's time: see Delisle, p. 208.

Hearne's Collection of curious ^ Madox ix. 2 p. 189 k.

Discourses (ed. 1775), i. 10 f., * Mr. Joseph Jacobs, The

14 f. ; ii. 317. Jews of Angevin England,

2 The gold and silver obols 1893, p. 160, suggests ' money
mentioned in the Dialogus, of Moscow or Muscovy ', the
i. 5 p. 183, were only counters payment being due from
used at the Exchequer to Benedict son of Ysaac de
represent 10/. and los. respec- Russie appearing in the Roll

IV THE COINS IN USE 85

Occasionally a foreign gold coin, the bezant, was
used for payment, but it was received at a con-
ventional value. In the Dialogue it is mentioned
under the name of aureus.^ It seems to have been
taken as worth is. gd. in the reign of John ; ^
this corresponds to 7s. of Angers.^ But in Nor-
mandy its value rose to 8s. of Angers, and in
England in like manner it is found under Henry III
and Edward I to be worth 2S.,* the shilling sterhng
having the value of four shillings of Anjou. The
bezant is generally said to be the Byzantine
solidus, brought into the west through the dealings
of merchants. It was sometimes called rhetorically
a talent.^ But it is possible that the word indicates
also the ducat, which was first coined by Roger II

of 27 Henry II, p. 134. But probable that half a penny-
Moscow was not founded weight could be taken at
until 1 147. According to a a value of £6 in England a
paper prefixed to the Roll of century earlier. Besides, the
10 Henry II, p. xi, ' it is quite statement seems to involve
clear that this fine of some a mistranslation of the Latin.
£6 sterling is an equivalent 1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 182.
for half a pennyweight or 2 Madox xxiii. 29 p. 711.
12 grs. of musk (that most ^ Delisle, p. 208.
costly of perfumes) bargained * i{{ ^ sterlingorum pro xxvi
for by the crown.* But if hizantiis auri, cited from the
sir Henry Yule is right (The Originalia of 40 Hen. III.
Book of Ser Marco Polo, 2nd m. 4, by Madox, viii. 4 p.
ed., 1875, i, introd., p. 68) 183 r.

in valuing a pound of musk 5 ibid., ix. 2 p. 189 1. Cf.

at Venice in 1311 at £22 los., Stubbs, Itinerarium Regis

so that a pennyweight would Ricardi, 1864, p. 456.
be worth is. 10 Jd., it is im-

86 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

of Sicily in 1140 and derived its name from the
legend on it which read ' dux Apuliae \^

Besides such foreign coins, ingots of the precious
metals or pieces of plate were sometimes received
at the Treasury at their weight. This was certainly
the case in Normandy, and there are examples in
England, as when in the 26th year of Henry II the
sheriffs of London and Middlesex paid £g 5s. 4d. in
pennies, 5 marks blank, 9 small rings of gold, and
3 gold clasps.^ But these formed a special payment
not rendered in a money value ; it was the valuables
seized from a woman convicted of clipping coin.

The money paid in was receipted by means of
tallies. A tally was a stick usually of hazel wood,
measuring in length the distance between the tip
of the forefinger and the outstretched thumb,^

1 King Roger forbade the son's with the duchy of

use of Romesinae, money of Apulia. See A. Engel, Recher-

Rouen ; et mortali consilio ches sur la Numismatique et

accepto monetam suam intro- la Sigillographie des Nor-

duxit, unam vero, cut ducatus mands de Sicile et de ITtalie,

nomen imposuit, octo Rome- 1882, p. 67. The baseness of

sinas valentem, quae magis the metal, which was sup-

magisque aerea quam argentea posed to be silver, roused

probata tenebatur-.FaXco Bene- indignation and is said to

ventanus, Chronicon, ad ann., have caused distress : Falco,

in Muratori's Rerum Itali- p. I33-

carum Scriptores, v. 131 C ^ Roll of 26 Henry II,

The type was doubtless de- p. I54 > also quoted by Madox

signed to commemorate the ix. 2 p. 190.

king's investiture with the ^ See for what follows the

kingdom of Sicily and his Dialogus i. 5 pp. 181 f.

IV TALLIES 87

about eight inches. It was bored near one end so
that it could be filed on a rod.^ The sum paid
was denoted by incisions on the two edges of it.
A thousand pounds was marked by cutting out the
thickness of the palm of the hand, a hundred by
the breadth of the thumb, a score by the breadth
of the little finger, one pound by that of a swelling
barleycorn, a shilling somewhat less, ' but so that
the cut took out a piece of the wood and left
a little furrow.' Pence were marked by simple
incisions without cutting out any wood. If a
thousand pounds were cut, no other mark was
made on the same edge, unless the half, five
hundred pounds, in which case half the wood was
cut away from the space of the incision : you cut the
breadth required for a thousand but only removed
half the wood, making the cut lower down on the
tally. ' The same rule holds if there are a hundred
pounds to be marked and there is no thousand, or
if there are a score of pounds, or a score of shillings
which we call one pound. If there are many
thousands or hundreds or scores of pounds to be
cut, the same principle is observed : namely, that
on the more open part of the tally, that is the edge
which is directly before you after the note has been
made, the greater number is cut, and on the other
edge the smaller.' A mark of silver was indicated

^ See Madox's quotation the tallies v s.' : xxiv. 14
from a pell of the Receipt of p. 742.
9 Henry III, ' for rodds for

88 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

by the number of shillings and pence. A mark
of gold was cut Uke a pound, but in the middle
of the tally, not near the end as pounds were.
A gold coin, presumably a bezant, was cut Hke
a silver penny, but not obliquely but by a straight
cut. Thus the distinction of gold and silver was
marked by the place or the form of the cut.^

Such is the description of the tally given in the
Dialogue. It may be verified and elucidated by
existing specimens of the thirteenth century. If
you hold a tally ^ in your hand with the thick
part and the bored hole to the left, and with the
note recording the name of the person to whom
the business relates and the cause of the payment
towards you, then you will find the cuts for the
largest denomination, — whether thousands, hun-
dreds, or scores of pounds, or smaller amounts, — on
the lower edge near the right-hand extremity, and
no other denomination will be cut on that edge.
The lower denominations are all cut on the upper
edge, with the pennies nearest the right-hand end.
The thousand is distinguished by a curved incision ;
the other cuts are serrated.

When the sums paid had been cut on the two
edges of the stick, and the name had been recorded,
it was split nearly to the bottom, so that one part

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 182. in the case of counter-tallies

2 All the specimens given the description in the text
by Mr. Jenkinson in the paper would have to be reversed,
referred to below are ' stocks ' :

IV STOCK AND FOIL 89

contained a stump or handle, and the other only
a flat strip. The larger part which was kept by
the sheriff was the tally ; the smaller which was
retained at the Exchequer was the counter-tally
or recautum} The two parts were also called the
stock (stipes) and the foil (folium) y and later on
we find the stock known as the scachia or chacia ^
from the Old French eschace, a ' stick \^ But either
part spoken of by itself might be indifferently
called a tally. The terminology has left a perma-
nent imprint on our language. If you lent money
to the Bank of England down to a hundred years
ago, tallies were cut for the amount : the Bank
kept the foil and you received the stock ; you thus
held ' Bank stock * of the amount recorded upon
it. When the form of cheque was adopted, it was
not indeed called a foil, but the part retained by
the payer is still the counterfoil * ; and the word
' cheque ' itself goes back ultimately to the same
root as * exchequer '.

There has been difficulty in bringing the descrip-

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 178. scaccus is not found and that

2 Madox xxiii. 28 p. 709 d,f. the word has not been proved

3 The word is still preserved to mean a ' dummy '.

in the plural /cA^ss^s, 'stilts.' « In modern times ' coun-

The gender forbids any con- terf oil ' or ' counterstock ' was

nexion with scaccus, ' a dum- used also as the equivalent of

my/ as is stated in the Pub- ' foil ' : see R. Beatson, Politi-

lications of the Pipe Roll cal Index (3rd ed.; 1806), ii.

Society, vii. p. ix, apart from 319 note,
the facts that the singular

90 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

tion in the Dialogue of the tally and the way it
was cut into agreement with such tallies as are
preserved ; and the explanation is this that no
medieval tallies which have been described until
this year from actual specimens are tallies of the
Exchequer.^ Those, for instance, which are figured
in the Introduction to the Pipe Rolls ^ are tallies
made between the reeve of a manor and his tenants ;
and it is only by inadvertence that the editor
speaks of them as ' made at the Receipt ... in
token that he was to be acquitted of the sums
in question at the Exchequer \^ They represent
a business transaction between private persons,
and have nothing to do with the Exchequer.*

In order to explain the disappearance of the
official tallies we have to pass to a famous piece of
modern history. By a statute of 1783 ^ it was
enacted that tallies should be abolished and ' an
indented cheque receipt ' take their place on the
death or surrender of office of the two chamber-
lains, when their offices were to cease. ^ But these

1 In the Archaeological Rolls, p. 68.

Journal, lix (1902) 288-302, ^ Other bailiffs' tallies of

Mr. Philip Norman describes 1279-1280 are described by

Exchequer annuity tallies from Mr. Norman, ubi supra, pp.

1692 and gives specimens of 302-304.

the years 1705-1707. ^ 23 George III c. 82 § 2.

2 Opposite p. 65. One of ^ At the same time, subject
these is shown on the back to existing interests, the offices
of the cover of the Oxford of the usher of the Ex-
edition of the Dialogus. chequer and of the tally-

3 Introduction to the Pipe cutter were abolished.

IV ABOLITION OF TALLIES 91

officers, Montagu Burgoyne and the earl of Guil-
ford had been appointed only in 1772 and 1779, ^^^
they did not surrender their offices until 10 October
1826.^ The tallies remained undisturbed until the
statute of 1834 ^ P^t an end to the old system of
the Receipt, as that of 1833 ^ had overthrown the
sheriff's account and all that went with it — the
lord treasurer's remembrancer with his filacers and
secondaries, the officers of the pipe, of the estreats,
and the green wax, and the foreign apposer. On
10 October 1834, we read in the Gentleman's
Magazine,* ' The most ancient revenue department
in the state, the Receipt of the Exchequer . . .
terminated on the various accounts of the last
quarter being made up.' What followed is well
known. On the i6th the tallies were burned, and
the houses of parliament were destroyed. On
22 October the privy council met to enquire into
the cause of the fire, and was unable to decide
with certainty how it arose ; ' but the most
probable account, from the evidence adduced, is
that it originated in the flues used for warming the
house of lords, which had been unusually heated
by a large fire made by the burning of the old
wooden Exchequer tallies.' ^

Some years ago however a bag of tallies was

1 J. Haydn, The Book of ^ 3 and 4 William IV c. 99.
Dignities, p. 166, ed. by * New Series, ii (1834) p.
H. Ockerby, 1890. 528 a.

2 4 and 5 William IV c. 15. ^ i^id., p. 482 b.

92 THE TREASURY OF RECEIPT iv

transferred to the Public Record Office from the
Chapel of the Pyx in Westminster Abbey, and
these proved to be true Exchequer tallies of the
thirteenth century. I was permitted to examine
them recently. They formed the subject of a paper
read before the Society of Antiquaries last spring
by Mr. Hilary Jenkinson/ and they confirm in
a remarkable way the accuracy of the details
set out in the Dialogue.

The manner in which tallies were used was as
follows. The ordinary tally was a voucher for
payments which would be received at the account
without alteration or addition. But besides this
there was a shorter tally which was called the
memoranda tally, which served a provisional
purpose. At Easter the sheriff paid into the
Treasury a portion of his farm, but no accounts
were enrolled ; but the tally then given him had
to be examined by the tally cutter and compared
with the vouchers for his disbursements. This
might lead to the alteration of the sums recorded.
Moreover the assay had to be performed. When
this was done, the memoranda tally was destroyed
and a tally of the full length given in exchange,
and to this was tied a ' tally of combustion '

^ This has now appeared in kindly sent me, but I have

Archaeologia, Ixii. 367-380. revised it in the light of what

The present lecture was written he has written and with the

before I received the copy of help of the facsimiles which

his paper which Mr. Jenkinson he has reproduced.

IV THE MEMORANDA TALLY 93

recording the loss made by the assay. So the tally
acknowledging the sheriff's payment was kept by
him and produced at the Exchequer of Michaelmas
when he paid in a further instalment.^ The
procedure is not very clearly described in the
Dialogue, and as the memoranda taUies were
destroyed at the time we have no means of supply-
ing any additional explanation.

I now pass from the Receipt to the Exchequer,
from the place where the money was paid in to
the place where the accounts were audited.

1 See the Notes to the Dialogus, pp. 175 f.

V

THE EXCHEQUER BOARD

In considering the composition of the board of
officials which was entrusted with the audit of the
accounts of money paid in at the Treasury, we
must not be tempted into supposing that the
organization of administrative departments had
far advanced at the time when the Exchequer
was estabUshed. The king had his Court and
his Council, but the persons who composed them
were very nearly the same. He had his Chapel, the
chaplains of which formed the writing staff of
the chancellor ; but it would be rash to speak of
the Chancery as already existing as a department
of administration, still more of judicature. He
had his Chamber, which in course of time became
the Wardrobe ; and above all he had his Treasury :
but the steps by which the Chamber, as a more
personal depository, was differentiated from the
Treasury are obscure.

Our leading authority for the organization
of the king*s household is a famous document
entitled the Constitutio Domus Regis, the Estab-
lishment of the King's Household, which was drawn
up very soon after the death of Henry I and gives
a detailed account of the officials of the Court with

V THE CONSTITUTIO DOMUS REGIS 95

their stipends and allowances. It is in fact a record
of what we should call the royal establishment made
for the information of the new king, who would need
to know what his household expenses might amount
to, and who would wish to have the opportunity
of making alterations in them. That the record
was prepared for the service of Stephen is clear :
had it been made in Normandy, with the empress
at the head of affairs, we should expect a different
title. Stapleton indeed said that it was ' compiled,
it would seem, in Normandy ' ; ^ but the only
reason he gave for his opinion was ' that the
bakers were to have 4od. to procure a modius
Rothomagensis out of the contents of which they
were to bake the required number of loaves \^
To set up the bushel of Rouen as a standard does
not imply that the household was settled there ;
indeed had it been, there would have been no
need to call upon the bakers to spend 4od. in pro-
curing the measure. The compiler of the Estab-
lishment had probably resided at the court of
Henry I, which had been in Normandy during the
last two years of the reign,^ and he set out the

1 Observations on the Great household of Normandy '.

Rolls of the Exchequer of ^ ibid., p. xxi, note 2.

Normandy, p. xx. It is not ^ 5^^ ^j. Haskins's paper

true, as is asserted in the pre- on The Administration of Nor-

face to the Red Book of the mandy under Henry I, in the

Exchequer, p. cclxxxviii, that English Historical Review,

he * attempted to prove that it xxiv. 228.
applies exclusively to the ducal

96 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

practice as he found it. The EstabUshment is
preserved in two compilations of the thirteenth
century, the Little Black Book ^ and the Red Book
of the Exchequer.^ The text is in many points
faulty, but that of the Black Book is the better
of the two.^ I shall quote from it the parts which
illustrate our subject.

The chancellor shall have 5s. a day, and one lord's
simnel and one salt simnel, and one sextary of clear
wine and one sextary of ordinary wine, and one thick wax
candle, and forty pieces of candle.

The master of the writing office, lod. a day, and one
salt simnel and half a sextary of ordinary wine, and one
thick wax candle and 12 pieces of candle. But king
Henry increased Robert [the keeper] of the seal so much
that at the day of the king's death he had 2s., and one
sextary of ordinary wine and one salt simnel, and one
wax candle and 24 pieces of candle.

The chaplains, the keeper of the Chapel, and the keeper
of the reliques have the corrody of two men, and four ser-
vants of the Chapel have each a double portion of food,*
and two packhorses of the Chapel,^ each id. a day and
id. a month for shoeing ; for the service of the Chapel
two wax candles on Wednesday and two on Saturday.

I pass over the remaining particulars concerning
the provision for the Chapel service, as also the
offices dependent on the steward and the butler.

1 Vol. i. 341-359, inHearne*s ^ Compare Mr. Round's re-
edition, marks in his Studies on the

2 In the manuscript it Red Book of the Exchequer,
stands near the beginning pp. 31 ff.

of the book, but it is printed * See below, p. 124.
on pp. 807-813. 5 Compare below, p. 99.

V THE CHAPEL AND THE CHAMBER 97

In what follows I omit the allowances of bread,
wine, and candles.

^ The master chamberlain is like to the steward in his
livery [that is, he receives 5s. a day if he lives at home,
but 3s. 6d. if he lives in the Household].

The treasurer is as the master chamberlain if he is at
the Court and serves as treasurer.

William Malduit shall have 13d. a day and continually
eat in the house . . . and shall have three packhorses with
their liveries.

The porter of the king's Utter shall eat in the house
and have three halfpence for his man and one packhorse
with its livery.

The chamberlain who serves in the chamberlain's place
2 shillings a day. . . .

The chamberlain of the candle 8d. a day. . . .

The king's tailor shall eat in the house, with three half-
pence for his man.

The chamberlains without livery shall eat in the house
if they will.

The ewerer shall have double food, and when the king
makes a journey id. for drying the king's clothes, and when
the king bathes 4d. except on the three feasts of the year.

About the launderer there is a doubt.

These entries show very clearly that though the
Chamber comprised the office of treasurer it had
by no means lost its primitive connexion with the
personal service of the king. About 1126 the same
man, Geoffrey Clinton, was both treasurer and
chamberlain. 2 Next follow the constables and then
the marshals.

1 Liber niger Scaccarii, i. 352 ; Red Book of the Exchequer,
p. 811. 2 Madox ii. 8 p. 40 a.

1376 H

98 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

^ The master marshal, namely John, has like payment
[to the stewards and constables] ; and furthermore he is
bound to supply tallies ^ for the gifts and liveries which
are from the king's Treasury and from his Chamber, and
he is bound to have tallies against all the king's officials,
as the witness in all things.

Then we have a description of the four marshals
who serve the king's household, with wages of 8d.
Their servants if sent out on the king's business
receive 3d. a day ; otherwise they have only
their board. The ushers, who are themselves
knights, receive three halfpence a day vnth their
board. The ushers who are not knights have
only their board. The watchmen, the fireman, the
usher of the Chamber, and the curtainer conclude
the list so far as we need study it. What follows
relates to the king's hunt.

In this miscellaneous crowd of people forming the
royal household and ranging from great officers
of state to scullions and slaughtermen, we can
disengage the elements of an administrative
system. There are six great offices, four of the
holders of which we shall find to have their places
at the Exchequer, receiving a uniform stipend of
5s. a day, though the treasurer only has his
allowance so long as he acts in the Treasury. This
distinction supports the view that the treasurer

1 Liber niger Scaccarii, i. p. 812 ; the Black Book has
354. duas. For dica in the sense of

2 Dicas in the Red Book, ' tally ' see Ducange, s. v.

V THE PAY OF THE HOUSEHOLD 99

is a recent addition to the staff and does work
which had been previously done by the chamber-
lains. The marshal suppHes tallies for payments.
Under the chancellor there is a master of the
writing office whose stipend has been raised from
lod. to 2s. The chamberlain at the Exchequer
receives 13d. The other stipends mentioned are
those of inferior servants ; but we may notice that
the Chapel has two packhorses assigned to it,
because there were not only the furniture of the
Chapel but also the rolls and records which needed
transport. In the same way three packhorses are
suppUed for the chamberlains, because they had
to convey the treasure to and from Winchester.
One officer who appears preeminent at the Ex-
chequer is not named, that is the justiciar. He
is not namej because he was in no sense an officer
of the king's Household ; he was the vicegerent
of the king himself. The king might, and did, sit
at the Exchequer,^ but in his absence the justiciar
took his place.

A comparison of the Establishment of the King's
Household with the description of the session at the
Exchequer given in the Dialogue, brings out plainly
the essential features by which the two are con-
nected; and the detailed account furnished by

1 Thus Henry the Young qui praesens fuit super scac-
King, in Roger Howden's carium in his sixth year :
Chronica, i. 228 ; and John, Madox iv. 8 p. 129 1.

H 2

100 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

our later authority helps us to fill in the picture
supplied by the record of the arrangements under
Henry I. But first I must say something about
the Exchequer itself. Bishop Richard calls it the
Greater or Upper Exchequer, to distinguish it
from the Receipt/ but it does not appear that it
ever bore this name: in the records it is simply
' the Exchequer'.

I have already explained at perhaps tedious
length the exact meaning of the system of reckon-
ing denoted by the name, and it needs no demon- ,
stration that Exchequer or Scaccarium means -^
a chess board, a board divided into squares.^
When this board came into use it was natural
that the counters placed upon it should some-
times be spoken of as chessmen, and the process
of account be said metaphorically to be a game
between the sheriff and the treasurer.^ But this
is a simple play upon words, of a type very
common among medieval writers, and is not
to be taken seriously. I should not dwell on the
point were it not that it has been confidently
maintained* that the Exchequer is so called not

1 Dialogus i. 4 p. 176. of English Industry and Com-

2 In th€ Dialogue only the merce during the Early and
vertical lines, from the point Middle Ages (5th ed., Cam-
of view of the calculator, are bridge 1910) p. 156 note 3.
mentioned; but the horizontal ^ Dialogus i. i p. 171.
ones must be assumed. Arch- * See the Publications of
deacon Cunningham, however, the Pipe Roll Society, vii.
thinks otherwise: The Growth p. viii.

V THE ' CHESS BOARD * loi

from the board but from the pieces. Of course
ultimately the Old French eschequier, of which
scaccarium is the Latinized form, is derived from
the game of eschecs, or scacci,^ from the plural of
which we have the English ' chess ' and from the
singular ' check \ Nor does any one doubt that
the word is derived from the Persian shah. But
the opinion that eschecs or scacci means the chess-
men has no support until a date long subsequent
to the establishment of the Exchequer.^

The Exchequer is described in the Dialogue as
follows :

^ The Exchequer is a rectangular board, about ten feet
in length and five in breadth, which is set after the
manner of a table against those who sit round it, and
has on every side a ledge about four fingerbreadths high
in order that nothing which is set upon it may fall off.
And there is laid on the top of the exchequer a cloth
bought at Easter term, not of any sort, but black divided
by laths at intervals of a foot or a span —

* which custom of laying a chequered cloth
there/ I may interpolate from Madox,* ' continues
to this day/ —

Within the spaces are counters according to their values,
as I shall explain hereafter. Now albeit such a board

1 See the New Enghsh passed under the name of
Dictionary, imder check, chess, Ovid and was popular from
chequer, exchequer. the second half of the thir-

2 The eariiest example of teenth century.

scaci in the sense of chessmen ^ Dialogus i. i p. 171.
given by Ducange comes from * iv. 3 p. 109.
the poem de Vetula, which

102 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

is called exchequer, the name is transferred so that the
Court which there is during the session of the Exchequer
is called the Exchequer ; so that if a man obtain anything
by judgement or anything be appointed by common
counsel, it is said to be done * at the Exchequer ' of such
and such a year.

The table, I take it, was placed at the end of
the room furthest from the door, much like the
high table in one of our college halls, but not on
a dais. Its size was sufficient to accommodate all
the persons who were engaged in writing or super-
vising the rolls and in placing the counters for
reckoning. At the head and foot of the table
there was a longer bench which projected far
enough down the room to provide seats for those
whose duties lay outside the account, the con-
stable, chamberlains, and marshal, and for the
sheriffs with their clerks. The arrangement of
the seats at the board was in principle this.
The head of the table was occupied by the chief
officers ; ^ on the long side facing the room were
the persons in charge of the rolls ; opposite to
them were those who performed the reckoning
with counters ; and at the foot sat the sheriff
whose account was being audited, with his clerk.
The great officers of the Household who had their

^ A breadth of five feet Custom of the Constitution ii.

would allow room for only (3rd ed., Oxford 1907), part i.

three persons, not for six 173 note i. The others sat

as is shown in a diagram in on the bench projecting below

sir W. R. Anson's Law and the table.

V THE SEATS AT THE BOARD 163

places at the board, or their clerks acting for them,
together with two personal nominees of the king, are
distinguished as the maiores or the barons, to whom
the decision of difficult questions was entrusted.

The description given in the Dialogue of the
session of the Exchequer is very well known, but
I must not for that reason pass it over, all the less
since it has not always been correctly understood.
I shall however abbreviate.

1 First and foremost, by virtue of his office, there sits
and presides the first man in the realm, namely the chief
justice. With him sit by the mere command of the
sovereign, and so with temporary authority, certain who
excel in greatness and discretion, whether they be of
the clergy or of the Court. They are there to decide
rights and to determine questions that arise. For the
special science of the Exchequer consists not in accounts
but in judgements of all sorts. For when a sum which
is demanded is set out and the sums which have been
spent are placed below it for comparison with it, it is
easy to find out by subtraction whether the amount is
made up or whether anything remains over. But when
a complicated enquiry is made about monies which come
to the Treasury in various ways and are demanded in
sundry manners, and are not required of the sheriffs in
the same way, it is to some a grave matter to decide
whether they have done amiss ; and for this cause
the science concerning such points is called the greater
science of the Exchequer.

After this preamble bishop Richard goes on to
speak of the office of the justiciar as the president

1 Dialogus i. 4 p. 176.

io4 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD V

of the board. He has the oversight of all that
is done either in the lower or the upper Exchequer,
and all duties performed there are ordered at his
command. And he has this special right

^ that he can cause the writ of the lord king to be drawn
up under his [sole] witness, in order that any sum may
be delivered out of the Treasury or that a sum may be
reckoned to a man which is authorized to be so reckoned
by the king's warrant ; or if he prefer, he may issue a writ
in his own name under the witness of others.

That is, he can give authority for issues out of the
Treasury and for allowances to the sheriff for what
he had disbursed in the king's service. The
justiciar sat at the head of the board, that is at the
right-hand end, ' at the middle not of the bench,'
because that ran down the room, ' but of the
board.'

On his left sat the chancellor, if he attended,
a man ' without whose consent or counsel nothing
of importance is done or ought to be done '.

2 To him it belongs to keep the king's seal, which is in
the Treasury and departs not thence except when by
the command of the [chief] justice it is taken by the
treasurer or a chamberlain up to the Exchequer to execute
the business of the Exchequer alone. When this is done
it is replaced in its purse, and the purse is sealed by the
chancellor, and then is committed to the treasurer's
keeping.

Elsewhere however it is explained that the seal
was in fact kept not by the chancellor personally

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 177. 2 p^ j^g.

y THE JUSTICIAR AND THE CHANCELLOR 105

but by his deputy, the keeper of the seal, of
whom we shall hear more shortly.^ It was also
by means of a deputy that he had charge of
* the roll which is of the chancery ', that is, of the
roll known as the chancellor's roll, which was a
dupUcate of the great roll of the treasurer.^

It is held by persons of authority that the chancellor is
equally bound with the treasurer for all that is written
on the roll, save only the entry of what is received in the
Treasury.

The treasury officials alone can tell what money
has been paid in ; but the chancellor shares their
responsibility for the correctness of the account.

He does not indeed dictate what the treasurer is to
enter on the roll ; but if he makes mistakes he or his
clerk is gently to reprove the treasurer and to suggest the
proper words.

If the treasurer persists in his opinion, the matter
is brought before the barons for their judgement.
On the chancellor's left, but not at the board,
sit the constable, the two chamberlains, and the
marshal. ^ Their places might be taken by others, and
there might be more people on the bench. These are
officials who had nothing to do with writing but
only with the mechanical business of witnessing
documents, producing writs and taUies, and taking
charge of deUnquents. The constable joins with
the chief justice in witnessing writs of issue and of

1 i. 15 p. 207 ; see below, pp. no f . 2 Dialogus i. 5 p. 179.

io6 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

discharge, ' for in all writs of this sort it is required
by ancient custom that there should be two
witnesses/ It may be doubted however whether
this custom was observed. The earliest writ of
issue known to be in existence, the original
of which, I am informed, has lately been
rediscovered at the Public Record Office —
it was known, like most things, to Madox,
who printed it ^ — ^bears the witness only of one
person, a clerk of the Chamber.^ Indeed we may
take it that the presence of the constable at the
Exchequer was not expected. Bishop Richard has
to eke out his description of his duties by saying
that it is his business, when the king's mercenary
soldiers come to the Exchequer for their pay,
to discharge their liveries with the help of his clerk
and of the marshal. He had also to pay the
falconers and hunt-servants. But this could only
be at the Treasury, for at the upper Exchequer
there were no dealings with money but only with
accounts. It is added that in these duties some
one else might take his place, since ' by reason
of more important and urgent business he cannot
easily be separated from the king '. The constable

1 X. 13 p. 268 q. This writ, 2 William of Sainte Mere

as the Editors of the Dialogus I'Eglise : see Eyton, The

note, p. 182, was not wit- Court, Household, and Itiner-

nessed at the Exchequer and ary of King Henry H, pp. 284,

must accordingly have been 293, 295.
issued from the king's Court.

V CONSTABLE, CHAMBERLAINS, MARSHAL 107

is in fact still primarily an officer of the Court ;
his nominal position at the Exchequer is a survival
of the time when the Court was everything.

Of the two chamberlains I have already spoken
in connexion with the Treasury of Receipt, at
which their employment was so constant that
their office was separated from that of the master
chamberlain of the Household and they were
known specially as chamberlains at, or of, the
Exchequer.^ Closely associated as they were
with the treasurer they did not sit at the Exchequer
board itself : ' the treasurer receives the accounts for
himself and for them, and dictates the terms of
the roll in accordance with the sums that have
been paid/ ^

Next the chamberlains was the marshal's place.

The duty of the marshal is to set apart in its forel the
tallies for the debts which the sheriff has rendered [that is,
of the tallies which served as vouchers of the amount
already paid by him], which also are entered on the roll,
and moreover the king's writs of allowance or discharge
or grant out of monies for which the sheriff is smnmoned
[showing the sums by which the total amount due from
him was reduced]. The name of the county to which
it belongs is marked on the forel, and the sheriff who
makes account has to supply the marshal with it. . . .
And if a debtor does not satisfy his summons and is to
be arrested, he is handed to the marshal for detention ;
and when the Exchequer breaks up for the day, the mar-

1 Cf. Round, The Commune of London, pp. 81-85.

2 Dialogus i. 5 p. 180.

io8 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

shal sends him, if he pleases, to prison for public custody :
but he is not to be chained or thrust into a dungeon,
but kept by himself above ground.

There is no record of any special prison arranged
for this purpose. As late as the time of Edward I
we find the marshal consigning persons to the
Fleet ; ^ but afterwards he had a prison of his own,
that of the Marshalsea, which was the prison
attached to the palace of Westminster, the prison
of the king's bench. If the delinquent was a
knight or of higher rank, he was not to be im-
prisoned.^ A baron must take oath that he will
not depart without permission beyond the bounds ^
of the town where the session is held ; * and
when the Exchequer of the term is over he is to
be confined in a safe place in free custody until
his case is determined by the barons. A knight
is ' freely guarded, not in the prison but within
the bounds of the prison house, under oath not
to go away thence without the licence of the king
or of the chief justice \^ When the sheriff's account,
it is added, is finished, the marshal takes oath of
him in public that on his conscience he has made
the account required by law.^

1 Madox xxiv. 6 p. 728 q. in his place, he is liable to

2 Dialogus i. 5 p. 181 ; ii. imprisonment even though
21 pp. 240 f . he is a knight : Dialogus ii. 21

3 See the Notes to the Dia- p. 241.

logus, p. 175. 5 ii, 21 p. 241.

* But if he sends some one ® i. 5 p. 181.

V MARSHAL AND TALLY-CUTTER 109

We now pass to the second bench occupied by
those who sat with their backs to the larger space
of the room. First sat the chamberlains* servant,
either a clerk or layman, who cut the tallies.*
His duties have already come before us when I
described the way in which the tallies were prepared
and dealt with. He had to adjust the sums entered
on the tallies for the payment of the farm with the
sheriff's other outgoings, and to make the counter-
tallies. When he had checked the entries, he
handed over the tallies to the marshal for safe
keeping.

Next to the tally-cutter sat one or more persons
to watch the placing of the counters on the
board and possibly to take turns at the work.
I use the word counters because, although
the current pennies were generally used, they
were only used as counters ; and it is important
to bear in mind that at the Exchequer no money,
as money, passed. The setting out of the coun-
ters was done by the calculator, who held no
particular office : ^ any one might be deputed for
the purpose, and he performed his task secundum
consuetum cursum scaccarii, non legibus arismeticis,

1 Down to modern times in the Roll of 27 Henry H,

the tally-cutter was the sub- p. 136.

ordinate of the chamberlains 2 jj^ is not to be con-
in the Tally Court. He seems founded with the computa-
to be the contratalliator who tores or tellers of money at the
receives wages at 2d. a day Receipt : above, p. 75.

no THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

that is by the use of counters, not by the rules of
arithmetic. He sat at the middle of the table so
as to have freedom for his hand, and, as the sums
of money to be accounted for were read out, he
placed counters in the proper spaces. Of these
there were seven, the lowest for pennies being
at the extreme right, next came shilUngs, pounds,
scores of pounds, hundreds, thousands, and finally
ten thousands. The calculator, or counter, began
by setting out in a row the amount required from
the sheriff who was in attendance ; and then in
lower squares the monies paid into the Treasury
or disbursed by the sheriff by the king's order.
If the payment was by tale the account was settled
by simple subtraction subject to a uniform deduction
of a shilling in the pound ; but if the farm was paid
blank the reduced value certified by the assay was
reckoned net.

On the left of the calculator there was room
for other persons if required ; and then, in
close juxtaposition to the accounting sheriff, at
the foot of the table, was the place of an
official of high position, called in the Dialogue
the clerk who is over the writing office ; in
the Establishment of the King's House he bears
the title of master of the writing office and is
ranked immediately below the chancellor.^ The
holder of it in that earlier record was Robert de

1 See above, p. 96.

V CALCULATOR AND KEEPER OF THE SEAL iii

Sigillo, so styled because he was keeper of the
king*s seal ; ^ and a comparison of another passage
in the Dialogue shows that the clerk of the
writing office was also the ' bearer ' of the king's
seal.^ Probably the office developed into that
of the vice-chancellor later on in the century.^
It was his duty to provide writers for the roll
of chancery — that is for what we know as the
chancellor's roll, the duphcate of the pipe roll —
and for the king's writs made in the Exchequer
and for summonses, and to overlook their work.*
In other words he was in charge of the writing
staff of the chancellor, but was not immediately
concerned with the audit of accounts, a work
which the chancellor controlled by means of his
clerk, the clericus cancellarii.

1 It may be remembered being lawfully used, had and

that the keeper of the great ought to have, use, and exe-

seal is to this day an officer cute as of right belonging to the

distinct from that of the office of the lord chancellor of

chancellor, though the post England for the time being '.

has never been appointed to 2 jn i. 5 p. 184 the clerk has

since George II, and that it to find clerks ad summoni-

was possible for the two to Hones conscribendas : in p.

coexist until the statute of 5 181 the marshal receives the

Elizabeth, cap. xviii, declared summonses against the next

that he had * the same and term of the Exchequer a latore

like place, authority, pre- sigilli regit signatas. This was

eminence, jurisdiction, execu- obscured in the earlier editions

tion of laws, and aU other by the misreading latere.

customs, commodities, and ^ gge Stubbs's Constitu-

advantages as the lord chan- tional History, § 121 note,

cellor of England for the time * Dialogus i. 5 p. 184.

112 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

Bishop Richard now returns from the lower side
of the table to the head and tells us who sat on
the president's right and on the upper side of
the table. The seat to the right ^ was occupied
by one who was not an officer of the Exchequer
but sat there by special order, the bishop of
Winchester, about whom I shall speak later on.
Then on the upper side of the table ^ were ranged
in order the treasurer, the writer of his roll, the
writer of the chancellor's roll, the chancellor's
clerk, and the clerk of the constable's office. The
treasurer is here the principal person : he has to
conduct the business both in receiving the sheriff's
accounts and in the writing of the roll. He dictates
the terms of the record, from which it is taken
down in the other rolls. His roll has to be abso-
lutely accurate, for

3 it is of such authority that no man may challenge or
alter it, unless it happen that the error is so manifest
as to be plain to all ; and even then it must not be
altered except by the common counsel of all the barons,
and in their presence while the Exchequer is still en-
during : but the writing of the roll made in the past
year, or even of the present year after the Exchequer is
closed, no man may alter except the king.

1 Dialogus i. 5 pp. 178, 184. is that where the counter

2 In i. 5 pp. 178, 189, secun- sits ; the third, where the
dae sedis, in secundo sedili, is rolls are written ; and the
an obvious mistake, found in fourth, that occupied by the
all the manuscripts, for ter- sheriff.

tiae. The head of the table ^ j^ ^ p^ 13^,
is the first bench > the second

V THE TREASURER AND THE ROLLS 113

The writer of the roll, known in later times as the
clerk of the pipe, wrote the great roll, the great
annual roll, which we call the pipe roll. This
I shall describe in another connexion.^ Side by
side with him sat the chancellor's writer, after-
wards styled the comptroller of the pipe, who pro-
duced an exact duplicate of the roll for the chan-
cellor's use.^ Each of them received 5s. at
Michaelmas term, to provide skins for the rolls
and for the summonses and receipts of the lower
Exchequer.^ The chancellor's writer had also the
duty of making out writs of issue from the Treasury,
and writs of allowance or discharge, but only of
payments or allowances authorized by the barons
while the Exchequer was sitting. The writs here
mentioned fall into two classes : there are writs of
issue, or Liberate ; and there are writs of allowance
and discharge, or Computate and Perdono. Both
were made out by the chancellor's writer in duplicate,
and the counterwrits were kept by the chancellor's
clerk. When the account was made, the writs
themselves had to be produced as vouchers. Then
the writs of Liberate were handed to the treasurer
and chamberlains ; and the writs of Computate and
Perdono were placed in the charge of the marshal.*
The reason for this distinction is the following. The

^ Below, pp. 150 ff. 9 Henry H to 3 William IV.

■^ The chancellor's rolls are ^ Dialogus i. 5 p. 187.
preserved with some gaps from * Ibid. i. 6 p. 188.

1376 I

114 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

writs of Liberate authorized the payment of money
from the Treasury : it was necessary therefore that
the treasurer and chamberlains should preserve the
writs as evidence of issue when their turn came to
be audited.^ The writs of Computate and Perdono
on the other hand had done their work, which
involved no payment of money but was only a matter
of account ; consequently it was sufficient that the
marshal should take charge of them as he did of
the tallies. The chancellor's writer also wrote the
summonses for the ensuing term, afterwards known
as the writs of summons of the pipe.

Just as the treasurer overlooked the work
of his writer sitting next him, so the chancellor's
writer was overlooked by his neighbour on his
right hand, the chancellor's clerk. But he had
a much more important duty in checking the
sheriff's account.

2 He examines carefully the roll of the preceding year
until the sheriff has made satisfaction for the debts which
are recorded in it and for which he is summoned. More-
over, when the sheriff sits at the account, after the
sums appointed in his county have been reckoned up and
set in writing, the chancellor's clerk receives from him
his writ of summons, with the king's seal attached, and
demands of him the debts entered upon it, calling out
* Render for this so much, and for that so much '. When
the debts are satisfied in full, he cancels them [on the writ]
by drawing a line through them, so as to distinguish
between what has been paid and what remains to be paid.

^ See below, p. 190. ^ Dialogus i. 6 p. 189.

V THE CHANCELLOR'S CLERK 115

He also keeps the counterwrits of what is done at the
Exchequer. He corrects and seals the summonses, and
has infinite labour, chiefest after the treasurer.

The chancellor's clerk was indeed a very impor-
tant official, and as the chancellor was usually
absent from the board, he rose to be a very great
man. In the thirteenth century ^ he acquired the
title of chancellor of the Exchequer and in course
of time came to be the principal, and finally the
sole, minister of the crown in the financial depart-
ment. Yet to this day, once in the year he puts
on the gown of a baron of the Exchequer when
he prepares the list of persons from whom the
high sheriffs of the counties are to be ' pricked ' by
the sovereign.

Last on this bench was the seat of the constable's
clerk, but generally some one else took his place,
for his only business at the Exchequer was to bring
the counterwrits of those made in the king's Court
into the Exchequer at the terms of the Exchequer,
in order to verify writs of Court which might be
produced there.^

The fourth bench, at the foot of the table, like
that at the head, extended down into the room ;
it was the sheriffs' bench, and besides the sheriff
and his clerk who actually sat at the board there
were others waiting in attendance until they should

1 Certainly by the 32nd 2 Dialogus i. 5 p. 178; 6
year of Henry HI ; see p. 189.
Madox, xxi. 3 p. 580.

I 2

ii6 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

be called upon to make account.^ But beyond
these, immediately facing the bishop of Winchester,
sat another confidential person who held no office.
This was Thomas le Brun or Brown, of whom I
shall speak in a moment. He too had a writer who
kept a roll, but as there was not room on the
writers' bench for him he had a raised seat behind
the treasurer's writer, from which he could look
over the roll and take down what he required.

1 now come to the two persons who attended
the board and ranked as barons not by virtue
of any office they held but by special order of the
king (ex novella constitutione)} It will be noticed
that they occupied corresponding seats at the
head and foot of the table so that they could keep
an eye upon the record which was being entered
on the rolls. Of these two men one, Richard of
Ilchester sat on the justiciar's right, and if, as
probably became more and more the general rule,
both justiciar and chancellor were absent, he sat

^ In ii. 4 p. 220 it is said of the fact that both the

that all the sheriffs except bishop of Winchester and

the actual accountant were Thomas Brown are evidently

excluded ; but in i. 5 p. 178 included in i. 6 p. 190 among

they are named in the plural, those qui ad mains scaccarium

Probably those who sat below ex officio resident. The king's

the board were deemed not to command made their attend-

be technically present. ance an officium, but they held

2 I incline to the reading no specific office. The Oxford
of the Black Book, non ex edition omits non ; see the
officio, in i. 5 p. 178, in spite Notes, p. 173.

V RICHARD OF ILCHESTER 117

alone at the head of the board. In any case his
position between the president and the treasurer
was a very important one.^ Richard is first found
as a writer of the court {scriptor curiae) between
1156 and 1162.^ He was then rewarded by the
archdeaconry of Poitiers, which did not as a
matter of fact interfere with his duties in England.
In 1 165 he sat among the barons ^ at the Exchequer.
He was repeatedly justice in eyre, and in 1173
was made bishop of Winchester and in 1176 jus-
ticiar of Normandy. He was one of Henry IFs most
trusted ministers and was often employed on diplo-
matic missions. It is in connexion with him that the
justices' roll first appears, audit has been suggested*
that he introduced the practice of enroUing their
proceedings. In the Dialogue we read that

^ before his promotion, when he served in a somewhat

^ Sir W. R. Anson, Law and among which is that of arch-
Custom of the Constitution, deacon Richard. Part of the
ii. part i. 173 note, places him text is quoted by Madox in
' at right angles to the justi- the dissertation prefixed to
ciar ' ; but the description in his Formulare Anglicanum,
the Dialogue, i. 5 pp. 178 and 1702, p. xix, from the original
184, is clear. among the muniments of

2 See Miss Norgate's article Westminster Abbey. Richard
in the Dictionary of National appears among the barons in
Biography, xlviii. I94£f.,where 1169, ibid., no. ccxci. p. 179 :
full references are given. cf. Eyton, p. 130.

3 This word is not used ; * gy Miss Norgate, ubi
but the phrase assidentihus supra, p. 195^.

iustictis regis seems to refer ^ Dialogus i. 5 p. 184.
to the first three names,

ii8 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

lower place in the king's Court, his trustworthiness and
industry made him indispensable to the king's affairs,
and he was alert and businesslike in reckonings and in the
writing of rolls and writs. He was therefore given a seat
beside the treasurer, in order that with him he might
overlook the writing of the roll and all such matters.
For the treasurer is distracted with so many and great
cares and anxieties that it is excusable for him sometimes
to fall asleep over his work.

At the opposite end of the table was master
Thomas Brown, who had had a career in Sicily
before he returned to his native country. It is
possible that he went out with Robert of Selby
who became chancellor of Sicily, and that a charter
was given ' by the hand of master Thomas the
king's chaplain * at so early a date as 1137.^ He
was certainly a member of the king's Court in
1143, and in 1149 is found engaged in the diwan
or financial department of the administration.
One may read his name in Greek and in Arabic
in Sicilian documents.^ According to the Dialogue ^
he was compelled to leave Sicily on the death of
Roger II in 1154 and was invited by the English
king to enter his service. The statement here
made that ' he was a great man in the Court of
the great Sicilian king and almost first in the

1 For this and what follows 2 ^^^^ jjliJl, /xayio-rpo ©w/xS

see Mr. Haskins's paper on rov Bpovvov : S. Cusa, I Diplomi

England and Sicily in the Greci ed Arabi di Sicilia, i

twelfth Century, in the Eng- (Palermo 1868) pp. 30, 313.

lish Historical Review, xxvi ^ i. 6 p. 190.
(1911) 439 ff.

V THOMAS BROWN 119

king's counsels ' may be exaggerated ; but the
last phrase, in regis secretis pene praecipuus, very
likely indicates that he held nearly the highest
place in the fiscal department known as the
duana de secretis} From 1158 there are signs of
his being in the king's employment ; from 1160
to his death in 1180 he was in the receipt of 5d.
a day from the farm of Hereford, the regular
stipend of a clerk ; and in some years he had in
addition 5s. a day from Essex and Hertfordshire,
the same amount as the vice-chancellor. More-
over from 1165, if not earlier, he was the king's
almoner, and held this post until at least 1177.
He was also a landed man, with a house at Win-
chester and four houses near Hereford.^

In these two persons, bishop Richard of Win-
chester and master Thomas Brown, I have long
been accustomed to see the origin of the two
remembrancers who first appear by name under
Henry IH.^ The position of each at the board

1 Cf. Haskins, p. 441 n. 49. out the distinctive titles of

2 Notes to the Dialogus, king's and treasurer's remem-
p. 173 ; Haskins, pp. 442 f. brancer. In the Liberate roll
As there appear to have been of 14 Edward I, m. 3, a writ
more than one almoner, I is addressed Nicholao de Ca-
doubt whether the appoint- stello uno rememoratorum scac-
ment of Roger the Templar in carii nostri , . . et magtstro
1177 necessarily involves, as Odont de Westmtnstre alteri
Mr. Haskins holds, the super- rememoratorum eiusdem scac-
session of Thomas Brown. carii nostri : Madox, xxiv. i

3 The two were long with- p. 714 1, The rememoraiar

120 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

enabled him, as I have said, to keep an eye on the
writing of the roll ; and Thomas Brown had
a clerk who wrote a roll himself. The nature of
this roll has been, I think, a little misunderstood.
It has been suggested that it was an accurate
copy of the rolls kept by the treasurer and chan-
cellor,^ but the statement in the Dialogue is that
the clerk looks over the treasurer's writer ' and
takes from him what he requires * {et ab ipso quod
oportet excipiat^). This is not the way in which
to describe ' an accurate copy '. It is quite true
that we are afterwards told that if an error is
made by Thomas Brown's clerk in excipiendo,
it will be easy to correct it while the rolls are
revised by making a comparison of all three ; but
it does not follow from this that the third roll con-
tained everything that was written in the other
two. In another passage of the Dialogue this
third roll is said to contain ' the rights of the
kingdom and the secrets of the king ' (regni iura
regisque secreta),^ and this expresses, if perhaps
in an unnecessarily grandiose style, very nearly
what the remembrancers of later times wrote in their
memoranda rolls : they recorded the sums due to
the crown to make certain that they were not

thesaurarii is cited from the ^ Introduction to the Dia-
Lord Treasurer's Memoranda logus, p. 27 ; Haskins, ubi
Roll of 26 and 27 Edward I : supra, p. 443 note 61.
ibid., 0. ^ i.S p. 179.

3 i. 6 p. 191.

V THE REMEMBRANCERS 121

omitted by the treasurer, they noted business
adjourned at the Exchequer, and a variety of
incidental matters.

I do not for a moment suppose that the re-
membrancers, if such I may call them, were in
Henry IPs time the important controllers of the
revenue department which they became after-
wards. The early rolls of the reign of Henry HI
indicate that their work was to note the excep-
tion rather than to record the rule. But it is
evident that they cannot have been appointed origi-
nally at the beginning of Henry IITs reign, and
yet it is officially stated that their memoranda
rolls begin with his first year.^ Now there is hardly
a year in the history of England in which it
was less likely for a new administrative arrange-
ment to be set up. Almost eleven months of it
were occupied by civil war ; the king was a child,
and his supporters had all their powers engaged
in the task of holding the throne for him. It
is inconceivable that between October 1216 and

1 Twentieth Report of the year of Henry HI. I do not

Deputy-Keeper of the Public understand the statement

Records (1859), pp. 41, 62 ; made in the Appendix to the

S. R. Scargill-Bird, Guide to General Report of his Majesty's

the various Classes of Docu- Commission on the Public

ments preserved in the Public Records (1837), P- ^Q^* that

Record Office (3rd ed., 1908), memoranda rolls of the lord

pp. 159 f . I am bound to add treasurer's remembrancer ex-

that I have not been able to ist for the ist and loth years

find any of these rolls in the of John.
Office earlier than the 2nd

122 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

Michaelmas 1217 Henry's ministers should have
estabHshed a new system of financial control, which
after all in the beginning did not amount to
very much. More than this, fragments are pre-
served of a nature analogous to the contents
of the remembrancers' rolls of a date prior to the
reign of John,^ and one of them appears to belong
to the early years of Henry II. If this be so, there
can be no a priori objection to our tracing their
origin to the two confidential officers mentioned in
the Dialogue. The only difficulty is that no one has
been discovered who succeeded Thomas Brown. I
am not sure that a closer study of the pipe rolls may
not lead to a probable conjecture. But I would
point out that the pipe rolls say nothing about
the services performed by Thomas Brown ; they
only tell us what wages he received and what
lands he held. Did we not possess the statement
in the Dialogue we should have never known that
he held a responsible place at the Exchequer.

These grants of land remind me to say a few
words as to the manner in which the various officers
of the Exchequer were paid. I have mentioned the
daily wages of some of them and the perquisites
recorded in the Establishment of the King's House-
hold. But these were not the only emoluments
which they received. To speak generally it would

1 They are preserved among the Miscellanea of the Ex-
chequer.

V EMOLUMENTS OF OFFICIALS 123

appear that the great officers of state held lands
in fee attached to their offices, and their deputies
held lands in serjeanty.^ The officers of the assay
likewise held lands in serjeanty.^ The clerks were
rewarded by ecclesiastical benefices. Thus Richard
the son of Nigel, the treasurer, was archdeacon,
canon, and dean before he was made bishop of
London in 1189. Church preferment was indeed
throughout the middle ages the usual way of
paying civil servants who were in orders. But
they also were holders of land. This is shown in
a remarkable way in the case of several writers
(scribae) under Henry I. As they were writers we
may assume them to have been clergymen, and
their duties were analogous to those of the modern
civil service clerk. One of them, Gisulf, had a
house at Winchester and held land in Cornwall
early in the reign. Another, Bernard, who was of
EngUsh origin, had five pieces of property in Corn-
wall and one in Surrey : ^ he succeeded to Gisulf*s
house at Winchester, which, I take it, was an
official residence ; * it had previously belonged to
Anselm the clerk. Bernard also succeeded to land

1 See Round, The King's lish Historical Review, xxvi
Serjeants, pp. 47 f. (iQn) 724-727.

2 Introduction to the Dia- 3 See Mr. Round's paper on
logus, pp. 22 f. For the Bernard the King's Scribe,
weigher's serjeanty see Mr. ibid, xiv., 417 ff.

Round's paper on TheWeigher * Ibid., p. 422: cf. Liber

of the Exchequer, in the Eng- Winton., p. 555.

124 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

formerly held by Gisulf in Cornwall.^ Besides these
properties he had inherited land, but the particular
point to which I would call attention is not that
these writers were men of substance but that their
official position furnished them with houses and
lands: Bernard had a squire in attendance.^

The chamberlain's clerk too is found to be a man
of property. Thurstin, who was clerk to William of
Pont de TArche, was granted lands by Henry I at
Farringdon in Hampshire and at Bosham in Sussex ;
he also received licence to keep hounds for taking
hares and foxes ; and he had houses at Winchester.
Under Henry H he rose to be sheriff of Hampshire, an
office in which he was succeeded by his son Richard.
That Richard was one of the sheriffs deprived after
the inquest of sheriffs in 1170 shows that it was not
only the local magnates who were deemed to have
given cause for complaint.^ Even the Serjeants of
the king's chapel held land, though we cannot prove
that their holding was connected with their employ-
ment. Two of them, Buistard and Curteis, who
witness a deed in a chartulary of Merton priory,*
appear in the roll of 1130 as holders of a hide in
Buckinghamshire^ and of five hides in Warwick-
shire.^

1 Round, ubi supra, p. 418. (1903) 59-63.

2 Ibid., p. 420. 4 Round, in the English

3 Seeforall this Mr. Round's Historical Review, xiv. p. 423.
paper on The Rise of the ^ Roll of 31 Henry I, p. 102.
Pophams, in The Ancestor, vii ^ Ibid., pp. 107, 108.

V PRIVILEGES OF OFFICIALS . 125

Besides these emoluments the officers of the Ex-
chequer enjoyed a number of privileges and exemp-
tions. They could not be impleaded during the time
of session ; they were protected from insult ; they
paid nothing by way of customs.^ What was far more
important, they were free from aU the great land
taxes. When the itinerant justices imposed a common
assize ^ on the hides of the county, the lands of those
who held office at the Exchequer — not merely their
demesne but all their fiefs — were exempt. They
were also free from the fine charged upon the hundred
for murder where the criminal was not discovered
(murdrum) : they paid no Danegeld ^ and no scutage.!
The perdonae or discharges entered on their account
on the rolls are of remarkable interest, because from
them it is possible to identify the lands held by
each officer according to the number of hides which
he possessed in each hundred (for the murdrum) and
each county (for Danegeld), and by the computation
of their knight's fees (for scutage). Bishop Richard
tells us that he had heard from his father Nigel that the
exemption was for a time withdrawn under Henry I,
but that the king afterwards decided that the loss
of revenue involved by it was small in consideration

1 Dialogus i. 8 p. 197. Notes to the Dialogus, p. 190.

2 This is sometimes the ^ Danegeld was not levied
donum comitaius, sometimes after the 8th year of Henry II,
an assessment . distributed but bishop Richard could not
over the county in com- know that it would not be
mutation for amercements again imposed.

and other defaults. See the * Dialogus i. 8 p. 198.

126 THE EXCHEQUER BOARD v

of the great burthen ^ of office, and issued a writ
declaring those who sat at the Exchequer for ever
free from these taxes. Hence the discharges were
constantly entered per breve regis, although there was
in fact no special writ issued in each case.^

To conclude this part of our subject, the general
impression which we derive from the description
given of the board of Exchequer is that, while it
retained its character as a meeting of the great
officers of the king's Court, yet this theory was
already breaking down under the stress of a more
fully organized system of administration. The
chancellor, the constable, and the keeper of the
seal would probably not be seen there. The clerks
or as we should say, the permanent officials, take
their place. They were better versed in the details
of finance than their chiefs, and there was no
reason why these should attend unless they were
called in to act in a judicial capacity, when difficult
points arose for settlement. Thus insensibly the
theory of a royal Court was changed into the
reality of a committee of skilled officials, rein-
forced by the king's personal representatives, the
remembrancers, who supervised the rendering and
the audit of the sheriffs' accounts.

1 I venture to read oneris logus, i. 8 p. 200.
in place of honoris in the Dia- ^ ibid., pp. 199 f.

VI

THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT

The person who rendered his account at the
Exchequer I call for convenience the sheriff,
because his account comprises by far the greater
part of what is entered on the great roll of the
year known as the pipe roll. But the sheriffs werel
not the only accountants, to use the technical
expression, at the Exchequer. Besides them there
were the stewards and bailiffs of honours, thej
bailiffs and reeves of towns^There were guardians
(custodes) of the temporalities of vacant bishoprics
and abbacies, and there were guardians of escheated
baronies and other fiefs. Guilds of craftsmen too
paid their yearly licence duty. Hence bishop
Richard is careful to specify ' the sheriff or guardian
or whatever person sits at the account '} It may
however be presumed, even when it is not stated,
that the sheriff acted on behalf of most of the
smaller people from whom an account was due.

The mode of payment differed according as it
was a normal yearly render or was something out
of the ordinary course. In the latter case, when
for instance the temporalities of a see were seized
into the king's hand, the accountant was merely

1 Dialogus, i. 5 p. 181 ; cf. Sheriffs, 1170, in Stubbs's
ii. 27 p. 245 ; Inquest of Select Charters, p. 148.

128 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

the agent ; he had to account in detail for every
penny which he received from the estates. Some-
times the county itself was held in wardship
(in custodia). But normally the sheriff or bailiff,
as the rent-collector of the king's manors within
his bailiwick, did not pay into the Treasury the
rents as he received them : he paid instead a
composition or lump sum ; in other words, he
farmed the manors. The amount for which he
was responsible is called the sheriff's farm. It is
common to speak as though this farm included
all the royal rights in the county ; and this is so
far correct that there are a few sources of revenue,
such as the proceeds of the local courts, independent
of the king's manors which made part of the farm.
But they formed a very small element in it, and
in the interest of clearness may be best disregarded,
rfhe sheriff received many other things, the receipts
for encroachments, the profits of the royal justice,
and the like ; he collected great levies, Danegeld,
scutage, and aids : for all these he must render
account, but he accounts for each item separately ;
Ithey are no part of his farm.

It is important to bear in mind this distinction
between the farm and the account as a whole,
and the limitation of the primary charge on the
roll. It was a matter between the sheriff and the
crown, and no question arose as to the way in
which he exacted from the tenants the sums for
which he paid his composition. Only on a special

VI THE SHERIFF'S FARM 129

occasion did Henry II go behind the accounts
presented at the Exchequer. This was in 1170
when he returned to England after an absence
of four years. Then by the Inquest of Sheriffs^
he ordered a strict examination not of the monies
due to the crown but of the actual sums which
the sheriffs, bailiffs, holders of franchises, and
holders of other bailiwicks in wardship had received
since the king's departure from England.^ But
ordinarily the sheriff was charged with his farm,
and no further questions were asked on this head. ,

The amount of the farm may be stated as the
yearly value of the king's manors in the shire or
other bailiwick less the costs of collection. (TTiat
however the profit earned by the sheriff was
considerably in excess of this margin may be
inferred from the heavy sums which were paid by__
him for obtaining his office.^ But that matter
does not concern us here. AU we have to con-
sider is the amount for which he was charged at
the Exchequer, and for this I confine myself to
the evidence which we possess for the reign of
Henry II. The single roll which is preserved from
the time of his grandfather is an invaluable record

1 Inquest of Sheriffs, i-iv. Geoffrey of York in 1194 of
pp. 148 f. Mr. Round has £2000 and a yearly rent of
commented on the importance 100 marks for the shrievalty
of clause iii. in The Commune of Yorkshire : Roger Howden,
of London, pp. 128 f. Chronica, iii. 241. The ^^2000

2 The most famous instance however were still unpaid in
is the offer by archbishop 1200 : ibid. iv. 140.

1376 K

-^

130 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

of the financial procedure of 1130, but it has
a number of membranes missing and moreover
it is isolated. It is only from a series of rolls
that we can learn what was the regular payment
required ; and for such a series we have to wait
until the second year of Henry II.

Before however speaking of these rolls in detail,
I must explain that in the twelfth century they
(gever mention the amount of the farnD In
Normandy the earliest known roll of the Exchequer,
belonging to the year 1180,^ introduces each section
by a definite statement of the total amount due ;
Ibut this convenient practice was not adopted in
England until William of Ely became treasurer in
the eighth year of Richard I. Down to that time
the sum was not disclosed at the board of Ex-
chequer, and was only produced after the sheriff had
accounted for his outgoings. Alexander Swerford
thought that it was kept secret ut ignorarent vice-
comites super quo deberent respondere? But in fact
the sheriff was summoned at Easter to pay in
a definite sum of money, which was the half of his
farm ; ^ and the reason why the amount was not
inserted in the roll until the close of the Michaelmas
paudit was in order that there should be no risk of
\Jiaving to correct and erase the figures if any

1 Printed by Stapleton, on p. 236, but it is not pre-

Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Nor- served,

manniae, i (1840). A roll of ^ Red Book p. 659.

1176 is cited in that volume ^ Dialogus ii. 2 p. 213.

VI THE SUM OF THE FARM 131

mistake was made in reckoning up the deductions.^
Thus until the end of the twelfth century the gross
amount of the farm was never entered ; but only
the balance between the sums paid in by the sheriff
added to his outgoings, and the gross amount
which was recorded on the rofulus exactorius or
tax roll in the hands of the treasurer. This roll
has not been preserved. If, as we may gather,
it was merely a schedule of the totals payable
from the several counties, boroughs, honours, and
other pecuHar bailiwicks and wardships,^ it ran to
no great length, and may well have been comprised
in a single membrane. When it came to be the
practice to enter the total on the pipe roll, it was
unnecessary that the tax roll should be preserved,
and we may in this way explain its disappearance.
The form in which the account of the farm is
drawn up, though it is in fact very simple, is apt
to cause difficulty to those who begin the study
of the pipe rolls. If we were to prepare such an
account, we should set down first the gross sum
demanded, then deduct from it the total amount
which the sheriff has paid out of pocket, and
finally charge him with the balance. The pipe roll
inverts the process : it opens by a statement of
what is paid or due, that is the balance ; then goes

1 ii. 27 p. 246. Sheriff's Farm, in the Transac-

* Mr. G. J. Turner thinks tions of the Royal Historical

that it was more detailed : Society, New Series, xii (1898)

see his valuable paper on the 131.

K 2

132 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

on to add to this the list of outgoings ; but leaves
you to find out the total by yourself. Of course
it is only a difference of method, but it leads to some
_results which are liable to be misunderstood. For
example, when, as is very frequently the case, the
sheriff's account ends with the words ' And he
^ovves ' so much, one might infer that he was either
remiss in collecting the monies for which he was
responsible or else that he had difficulty in meeting
the demands made upon him. Neither inference is
necessary. The sheriff was bound, just as a modern
man of business is bound, to keep a balance. Not
only were there regular outgoings which might have
to be paid before any new money came in, but
also the sheriff was liable to receive at any time
royal orders for expenditure of various kinds and
often of very large amount. Consequently he had
to arrange not to pay in so much of his farm as
would leave him without means for meeting what-
ever calls were made upon him. When, on the
other hand, as sometimes happens, the roll states
that ' he has a surplus \ one naturally thinks that
the particular sheriff has been exceptionally
provident ; but the words imply exactly the
reverse. The sheriff has a surplus because he has
paid in so much into the Treasury that he has not
left himself enough to meet the king's occasional
demands. These he pays out of his own pocket, and
the account has in fact a deficit which will have
to be made good in the next financial year. The

VI SYSTEM OF BOOK-KEEPING 133

explanation of this apparent paradox is that, as
I have tried to show, the sheriff's account is
rendered in terms of negatives. The items are all
added together in order that they may be finally
subtracted from the farm. Every sum we add is
a fresh deduction from the amount which the sheriff
has to pay. If the account ends with a debit
balance, it means that the sheriff has some money
in hand which he will pay in the following year :
if it ends with a surplus, the sheriff will add this
to his deductions in the next account.

The system of the farm of the shire was fully
established under Henry I, and it was maintained,
possibly with interruptions, in the reign of Stephen.^
The pipe roll of the second year of Henry II proves
that the Exchequer was at work in the last years
of his predecessor.^ But there is no question that
the amount of loss to the Treasury in consequence
of the devastation of a large part of the country
was enormous ; ^ and the revenue was diminished
not only by this cause but also by the reckless
grants of land made to their supporters by the rival

1 See Round, Geoffrey de '^ See Turner, ubi supra, pp.

Mandeville, 1892, pp. 92, 142, 127 f.

154, for evidence as to 1141. ^ Dialogus i. 8 p. 199. Sec

The Exchequer buildings at the figures collected by Mr. H.

Westminster were in need of W. C. Davis, The Anarchy

repair when Henry II came to of Stephen's Reign, in the

the throne : see the Roll of English Historical Review, xix

his second year, p. 4 in two (1903) 634, 639 f.
places.

134 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

claimants to the throne.^ The king's income
suffered profoundly, but the farm for which the
sheriff was accountable remained in principle
unaffected.^ If there was waste which the sheriff
made good, he paid so much ' for the restoration
of the manors ' and deducted the amount from his
farm. The same was the case with regard to the
crown lands which had been alienated, the terrae
datae as they are termed. The sheriff gives in his
account a list of lands granted by the king with
their annual value in order that he may be allowed
for them, in other words that his charge may be
reduced by this amount. Substantially the same
list may appear from year to year : lands granted
in the sixth year of Henry II will be repeated as
late as the twenty-second, or later. They are a
permanent loss to the farm ; — ^how great a loss,
may be seen from a calculation made by Dr. Parow^
that in the sixteenth year the farms of the counties
amounted to just under £10,000 blank, from

1 Cf. Round, pp. 99, 275. appear in the sheriff's account

2 For example, in the 22nd too because it was separated
year of Henry II the sheriff after the farm was settled,
of Gloucestershire paid in to The sheriff was forgiven his
the Exchequer £84 os. 2d. balance of £13 14s. 8d. Hence
To this has to be added £50 for a farm of £372 13s. 6d.
for the farm of the borough only £134 os. 2d. reached the
of Gloucester, for which its Exchequer. The rest was
reeve accounted separately made up out of terrae datae
(as he had done since Easter and fixed or casual outgoings.
1165, Roll of II Henry II, ^ Compotus Vicecomitis,
p. 12), but the sum had to p. 27.

VI TERRAE DATAE 135

which terrae datae of the value of £3663 15s. yd.
had to be deducted. The farm was therefore on
an average diminished by nearly 35 per cent.
The farms of honours and towns were almost
exactly ;f4000 blank, but these had not been so
largely reduced by grants of land ; the loss on
them was not much more than ;f5oo. It might
seem to us simpler, supposing lands of the value
of £50 to have been aUenated, to change a farm
of £400 to £350. But this would not have worked
in practice, for it was always possible that some
of the lands might escheat to the crown through
failure of heirs, and in such cases, unless they were
placed specially in custodia, they passed back
into the farm.^

The amount of the farm was a definite sum fixed\
at the Exchequer before the summonses to the
, Easter sessions were sent out. At the beginning
of Henry II's reign it varied sUghtly from year
to year in consequence of the difficulty of ascer-
taining exactly to how much the king was entitled
after a period of disorganization. By the sixth
year they settle down to a normal amount from
which they rarely differ unless a definite alteration
was arbitrarily made. When the farms had become
practically fixed, it was not uncommon to make
an addition to them, as when fresh land was
brought under tillage, under a separate designation :

1 See an example in Turner, ubi supra, pp. 136 f.

136 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

either the new charge was described as ' of incre-
ment ' (de cremento) ; or else the farm was stated
to be so much blank and so much by tale, the amount
payable by tale being the additional levy. Some-
times the payment for the increment was not
charged in money but took the form of the render
of a certain number of hawks. ^

The farm, as I have said, formed only a part
of the account for which the sheriff was charged at
the Exchequer. The other items, which I shall
mention later, do not admit of precise statement,
because they were derived from varying sources
of revenue ; but it has been estimated that, in
a year in which there was no Danegeld or scutage
or aid, they might amount to a sum not far short,
perhaps nine-tenths, of the net farms after deduc-
tion of the terrae datae.^ Giraldus Cambrensis is
unexpectedly near the truth in the account he gives
of the history of the revenue in the twelfth century.
After repeating the figment, for which he vouches
the authority of Domesday Book, that at the
time of the Norman Conquest the revenue amounted
to 60,000 marks, he says

3 By the time of king Henry H, so much land had been

1 Thus in the Roll of 23 diebus, annul liscales redditus,
Henry H, p. 156. sicut [in] rotulo Wintoniae

2 See Parow, pp. 48 f. reperitur, ad sexaginta mil-

3 Angliae, regum Anglorum Hum marcarum summam im-
tempore et etiam penultimi plebant; tempore vero regis
Edwardi Westmonasteriensis Henrici secundi, tot terris

VI THE FARM AND THE CASUAL REVENUE 137

granted to knights both by king Stephen and himself,
by reason of the almost constant wars waged first between
them and afterwards against France, that the returns of
the Treasury were found hardly to amount to 12,000 marks
a year. One may therefore ask, or marvel in silence, how
it was that king Henry II and his sons, in spite of their
many wars, abounded so much in treasure. The reason
is this, that as they had less in rents they took care to
make up the total by occasional incomings and relied
more on accessory than on the principal sources of
revenue.

Before entering upon the form in v^hich the
account wsls enrolled, I v^U give a summary of
vv^hat is said in the Dialogue about the procedure
which regulated the mode of its render. This was
made in three stages, which were distinguished
from the thirteenth century onwards as the
' profer ', the ' view of the account ', and the
' summ '} In the first stage, both at Easter and
Michaelmas, the sheriff paid in money. The ' view '
took place at Easter, when he made his vere dictum

interim militibus tam a rege secundus et eius filii tot in-

Stephano prius, quam ab ter werras tantis thesauris

ipso postmodum, tum propter abundabant. Ad quae ratio

werras primum inter ipsos reddi poterit, quia, quod

postmodum erga Franciam minus habebant in redditibus,

fere continuas, large utrimque totum in accidentibus, plus in

datis, vix annul duodecim accessoriis quam principalibus

milUum marcarum redditus confidentes, supplere cura-

fiscales sunt inventi. Quaeri bant : De Principis Instruc-

ergo potest ab aUquo, vel tione, ed. G. F. Warner, 1891,

taciturn etiam quempiam hi- 30 p. 316 (Opera, viii).

movere, quahter rex Henricus ^ Madox xxiii. 2 p. 644.

138 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

or verbal declaration as to what allowances and
discharges were due to him, without producing the
' warrant ' in the shape of writs and quittances.^
The ' summ ' or completion of the account was
made at Michaelmas, when full evidence of all
particulars had to be furnished and was recorded
on the roll.

^ In order that the Exchequer may be held there are
summonses issued. For the persons who must attend
are first summoned by a writ under the king's seal to a
place named : unless they receive a summons they need
not attend. There are two classes of persons at the
exchequer : first, the barons who sit and judge either
by virtue of their office or by the king's order ; secondly,
the sheriffs and other persons who pay and are judged,
being chargeable some with voluntary offerings, some with
compulsory payments. Now on account of the number of
persons who have to be summoned from all the counties,
it is necessary to state precisely in each writ how much
is to be paid at the forthcoming term and for what cause.
Suppose a sheriff when making his account to be called
upon for any matter relating to any debtor in his county
who has not been mentioned in his summons, he is not
bound to answer ; he is excused because there has been
no summons for the particular matter. The object of
the summonses is that the Treasury may get possession
of the royal farms and of monies owing to it in various

1 Madox xxiii. 2 pp. 646 f . ; History of Procedure in Eng-
Notes to the Dialogus p. 208. land, 1880, pp. 114-122. I

2 Dialogus ii. i pp. 210 f. regret that I had not the
An excellent paraphrase of the advantage of reading this
following passages is given by book until my lectures were
Mr. Melville M. Bigelow in his written.

VI THE SUMMONS OF THE EXCHEQUER 139

ways. There are however some payments which must
be made through the sheriff even though they be not
mentioned in the summons : these are not the settled or
fixed payments but casual sources of revenue, as will be
explained hereafter.

When the Exchequer of the term at which the sum-
monses are made is closed, the treasurer's clerks take
out the sums due to the king county by county from the
great roll of that year, and record them on shorter rolls
with a note of the reason for each claim. Then the barons
(maiores) retire for consultation and settle how much is to
be summoned from each county and from each debtor in
it,^ having regard to the quahty of the person and of the
business or cause for which he is bounden to the king. The
authoritative roll of the year, from which these claims are
extracted, is held by the treasurer or his clerk for reference
in order that there may not by any chance be an error in
making the extracts. Meanwhile another clerk carefully
takes down what they have settled in their extracts, con-
cerning which the summons is in the following terms :
Henry king of the Enghsh to such or such a sheriff
greeting. See as you love yourself and all that you
have that you be at the Exchequer at such a place on
the morrow of Michaelmas, or the morrow of the close
of Easter, and have there with you whatsoever you owe
of the old farm [that is, the arrears of last year] or
of the new, and specifically the debts following : from
such a one ten marks for this cause,
and so forth. All the debts are set out with their causeT")
which are contained in the great roll of the year. Then /
all the smaller rolls of the itinerant judges are brought
forward, and whatever falls due to the king in each coimty

1 Not surely ' every tax- the sheriffs, bailiffs, guardians,
payer ', as Mr. Bigelow takes and the like,
it, p. 118 : the debitor es are

140 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

through their labour and industry is extracted from them.*

And when these have been settled by the great officers,

they are inserted in the summonses ; and when the whole

is arranged in order, the summons is completed as follows :

And you shall have all these things with you in

monies, tallies, writs, and quittances, or they will be

taken from your farm. Witness such or such a person,

at such a place, at the Exchequer.

The sheriff is thus to bring first cash, secondly

tallies for what he has already paid at Easter,

thirdly writs for payments out of pocket authorized

by writ, and fourthly quittances for like payments

not so authorized because admitted as customary.

If he fails to bring them, they will be ' taken out

of ' his farm ; that is to say, he will not be allowed

to deduct them (i. e. the sums mentioned in the

writs and quittances) from his farm : and if he does

not pay in all the monies which he ought to have

collected from other sources, he will be charged

first with them, and what he has brought with him

in order to satisfy his farm will be correspondingly

reduced.

2 Moreover, by a modern ordinance, that is after the time
of king Henry I, the following was added in summonses :

if perchance you are summoned for the debt of any
man who has no land or chattels in your bailiwick,
and you know in whose bailiwick or county he has them,
you shall signify the same by your writ to that sheriff
or bailiff, by the hand of your messenger who shall
deliver your writ to him in the county court, if possible,
or in the presence of several persons.

1 Cf. Dialogus ii. 2 p. 215. ^ ii. i p. 211.

VI THE SUMMONS OF THE EXCHEQUER 141

This additional clause was necessitated by some people's
vexatious subterfuges. For knowing the times when the
summonses were sent out, before the summons for their
debt reached the county, they would empty their bams
and disperse their goods whither they would or pack
them off to safe places, and then sit at home destitute,
awaiting in security the arrival of the sheriff and the other
officials. So for a long time by this device the authority
of the king's writ was mocked at. For this reason the
clause given above was inserted in the summonses, and
there was no room left for evasion to save the debtor
from making satisfaction unless he was excused by
extreme poverty. But when it became clear to all
sheriffs and debtors that by this means an end could be
put to proceedings of this sort, it was no longer necessary
to add the clause given above, and it is not now inserted ;
but the mode of coercion of debtors, whithersoever they
have withdrawn themselves, is maintained by the sheriffs
and upheld as though established by a perpetual law.

^ The Exchequer is held twice in the year, and each time
summonses are issued for it. At the Easter term there
are taken from the sheriffs not accounts but views of
accounts ; so that hardly any of the business is committed
to writing,^ but the whole is reserved for the next term,
so that it may be then entered item by item in order in
the great roll of the year. But certain particulars to be
borne in mind {memoranda) which often arise are then
written down separately by the treasmrer's clerk, so that
when the Exchequer of that term is closed the barons
may decide about them : unless they were recorded they

1 ii. 2 pp. 212 ff. Under Richard I the account

2 That is, apparently, as a of the Easter ' view ' is found
final record. It seems from attached as a schedule to the
what follows that the memo- pipe roll : see Madox xxiii. 2
randa contained entries of p. 646 w.

debts remaining in arrear.

142 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

would not easily occur to the memory on account of
their great number. Moreover, [a note is kept of] what-
soever a sheriff has paid into the Treasury of his farm,
and then if he has satisfied [the board], in the same line
is written ' And he is quit : ' if not, the amount owing
is set down distinctly in a lower line, so that it may be
known how much of the sum of that term is lacking
and that he may forthwith make satisfaction according
to the judgement of the president. For every sheriff is
bound to pay at that term one half of the farm arising for
the year from his county.

In these summonses the language does not vary except so
far as concerns the date and place, supposing for instance
that the barons decide to hold the Easter Exchequer at
one place and the Michaelmas Exchequer at another.
But although the same terms are preserved in both
summonses, there is a difference in the note of the debts
extracted [from the memoranda]. For in the summons
made against Easter term, because the year is taken
to begin then,^ the phrase is simply, ' From such a one
you shall have £10/ and from this summons he shall
not be absolved except by then paying or making satis-
faction 2 for £10. But when there comes to be made the
summons for Michaelmas term, at which the year is
closed and terminated, and the roll of the year is made,
there will be added to the ;^io aforesaid another £10 or
more, as shall seem good to the barons, and the words
will be ' From such a one you shall have £20 '. But suppose
the accountant has paid £10 of this sum at the Easter
term, he will now pay £10 in cash and produce a tally for
the £10 already paid, and will thus be absolved from his

1 The summonses for Easter year began : see above, p. 139.
were settled immediately after 2 jhat is, by means of

the close of the Michaelmas tallies or writs of allowance

Exchequer, when the financial or discharge.

VI THE SUMMONS OF THE EXCHEQUER 143

summons. For the terms of the summons are : * All
these you shall have in money and writs and taUies/

When a summons has been written, if while it is being
corrected a mistake is found, it must not be cancelled
by means of a line drawn below nor erased, because the
writing is patent [and therefore hable to being tampered
with] : the words written in error must be completely
obUterated, so that nothing of the writing can be read.
No doubt the sheriff may alter the writ after he has
received it, because the barons keep no copy ; ^ but it
would be very dangerous to do so, because all the debts
concerning which summonses are issued are dihgently
recorded elsewhere. Moreover, for greater security,
the archdeacon of Poitiers [for a time] caused copies to
be made of all summonses and allowed no writs to be
sent out before copies of them were made and carefully
corrected. So, when the sheriff came to account and
the chancellor's clerk read the summons, the archdeacon's
clerk 2 kept his eye on the copy and watched lest he deviated
from it. But after a time, when the number of debtors
increased immensely, so that the length of one skin would
hardly suffice to contain [the writs for] a single summons,
the practice was given up and the officers were satisfied
with the original summons alone, as formerly.

1 Enrolment of the writs of Thomas Brown had a writer
summons had therefore not there, but there is no mention
begun ; but the memoranda of the archdeacon's clerk,
already mentioned must have Probably one of the two state-
served as a check upon ments is due to inadvertence :
fraudulent alteration of the there was a remembrancer's
summonses. clerk in the Exchequer, and

2 In the account of the bishop Richard accidentally
session of the Exchequer attached him to different
(above, p. 116) it is said that remembrancers.

the archdeacon's colleague

144 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

The inconvenience caused by the multitude of
entries of debts that could never be recovered,
because the debtor was dead or for other reasons,
was perceived in the 28th year of Henry II when
they were removed from the account of the shire
and placed by themselves in a separate pipe pre-
fixed to the roU.^

Bishop Richard has then a digression on the
eminent success of Henry II in estabhshing peace.
After the great rebellion of his wife and sons in
1 173-4, he treated the conquered with unheard-of
mercy : very few suffered loss of their goods, and
none of their hfe or condition.

2 Therefore, when peace was restored, after the ship-
wrecked state of the kingdom, the king took steps to renew
again the times of old. He chose discreet men and
divided the kingdom into six parts,^ so that the itinerant
justices [indices err antes), as we call them, should pass
through it and re-establish the rights of which the people
had been deprived. They made their authority felt in
every county and administered justice to those who

^ When the form of the Rhuddlan) and were assigned
account was remodelled by to the loth year. They are
the Provisions made in the enrolled on the close roU of
Exchequer in the 12th year 12 Edward I m. 7 dors,
of Edward I (Statutes of the (Calendar of Close Rolls,
Realm i. 69) a separate roll 1279-1288, pp. 294 ff.). The
was made de firmis mortuis et roll of ' dead farms * was
dehitis de quibus non est spes. known as the Exannual Roll.
These Provisions came to be ^ Dialogus ii. 2 pp. 215 f.
described erroneously as the ^ By the assize of North-
Statute of Rutland (meaning ampton, 1176.

VI AMERCEMENTS BY JUSTICES 145

thought themselves wronged, thus saving both trouble
and expense to the poor. In these visitations divers
crimes were punished in divers ways in consideration of
the nature of the offence ; so that some received punish-
ment in their body, and others in their money. Now the
money penalties are carefully noted in the rolls of the
itinerant justices,^ and, when the Exchequer sits, they are
delivered to the treasurer in the sight of all. But the
judges have to be careful to send in to the treasurer
accurate rolls properly arranged in order ; for after they
have been handed in it is not lawful even for the judges
themselves to change a jot, not though all the judges
agree therein. If a mistake occurs, it is their own fault,
because there are times granted them for correction and
they know the appointed law : the amount stated will
be required of the debtors, if they are condemned to this
amount, or from the judges themselves. Suppose they
have described on the roU a man as condemned to the
payment of a score, and, when the voucher is handed in
to the treasurer, they remember that he was only bound
in ten, the judges themselves shall make satisfaction for
the residue ; for they cannot recall that which they have
written and corrected with deHberation after it has once
been handed in.

The debts contained in the roUs handed in the treasurer
causes to be dihgently and distinctly recorded in the
great roll, county by county, likewise with the causes,
with a note of the names of the judges, so that in this way
the sums exacted may be distinguished. Of these matters
the summonses should be drawn up thus : * Of the pleas
of such and such persons, from such a one so much and

^ These are the eyre rolls to be enrolled on the memo-

from which in later times randa roll of the lord trea-

estreats (that is, extracts) surer's remembrancer,
were sent in to the Exchequer

1376 L

146 THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

from such a one so much/ according as the barons have
beforehand settled the debts.

1 All sheriffs and bailiffs to whom summonses are ad-
dressed are bound by the authority of the king's writ, to
appear at the time and place appointed and to satisfy their
debts. Supposing that he is in default in paying the debts
recited in the writ, the sums due from other people will
be taken from his farm, and he will have to make up his
farm from his own chattels and from the rents of his
estates, and in the meanwhile, if the barons so determine,
he will be placed in a sure place under free custody.
When therefore the sheriff receives the summons, he
must come on the appointed day and show himself to
the president, if he happen to attend, or in his absence
to the treasurer. Then, having saluted the barons, he
is free for the day, but must return on the morrow and
each day following. If perchance he does not come nor
send a lawful excuse, on the first day he is condemned to
the king in loo shillings of silver for each county [of which
he is sheriff] ; ^ on the second, in ten pounds of silver ; on
the third, as we have heard from those who were before
us, all the goods that he possesses will be at the king's good
pleasure ; and on the fourth, since he is now proved to have
contemned the king's majesty, he will be at his mercy not
only in his goods but his own person. Some however are
of opinion that a money penalty suffices for the whole
amount, namely lOO shillings for each day. I do not

1 Dialogus ii. 3 p. 216. ham and Derby, Essex and

2 Many counties were held Hertford, and Norfolk and
in pairs by a single sheriff, as Suffolk, Dorset and Somerset,
Cambridgeshire and Hunting- had each a sheriff in common ;
donshire are held to this day. but in the last case the
Thus the counties of Buck- accounts were sometimes ren-
ingham and Bedford, War- dered separately. See Turner,
wick and Leicester, Notting- ubi supra, pp. 142-148.

VI THE SHERIFF'S ATTENDANCE 147

contest the statement, provided that the king, against
whom the offence is committed, approves. For it is quite
probable that he may accept this manner of punishment,
for his singular grace is slow to inflict punishment and
swift to reward. The writ says that if the sheriff is in
default in paying the sums mentioned in it, they shall be
taken from his farm. But suppose he has expended the
whole of it by king's writs or in works or otherwise, what
then ? In that case he will be detained on his own
security in such place as the barons may determine, until
he has made satisfaction for these debts as he had to do
for the farm.

In the following statement which deals with the
procedure allowed when the sheriff was unable
to carry out his duties at the Exchequer in person,
a distinction is drawn between what was per-
mitted when he paid in or satisfied the debt due
from him, or in the later phrase when he made
his ' profer \^ and what was required when he
came to account. In the second case the rules were
much more strict than in the first. ^

3 If the sheriff is detained by sickness, he may send the
money which he has collected by his servants accompanied
by a letter of excuse. One or both of his messengers
must be a knight or a layman connected with him by
blood or otherwise. Clergymen alone must not be charged
with the duty, because if they misbehave it is not proper
to imprison them for money or accounts. A valid excuse
frees the sherifi from the penalties for non-attendance at

1 See Madox xxiii. 2 pp. 658 ff. ; Notes to the Dia-
644 ff. logus, p. 214,

' See ibid., xxiii. 5 pp. 3 Dialogus ii. 4 pp. 218 ff.

L2

148 ' THE SHERIFF'S ACCOUNT vi

payment. On the other hand, for the completion of his
account no one is admitted except ^ his eldest son, not
even his general proctor, even though he have his writ
authorizing him to act for him. Only by the king's order
or, in his absence, by that of the president can he
substitute another to fulfil his account ; but if he is
employed on other business laid upon him by the king,
he may at the Exchequer in person nominate some one
there present to carry out his duties for him. The writ
of the king or president or of the sheriff excusing
himself shall be kept in the marshal's forel. If the
sheriff is called abroad by the king or has licence to
go abroad on private business, he must first approach
the president and delegate his functions by word of mouth
to some lawful man. In such a case he need send no
writ or excuse his absence. If a sheriff is excused for
illness, when his account comes to be written for the roll
of the year, it will be said, ' William sheriff of London,
Robert his son for him, renders account for the farm of
London.' But if another is substituted for him by the
king's order, or if he himself by word of mouth has
designated any one to the president in his place, the
record must be written throughout as though he had
attended at the account in person. Other excuses for
absence are admitted, such as the death of the sheriff's
eldest son or the serious illness of his wife, or compulsory
attendance on his liege lord in a lawsuit ; again, if the
lord wishes to make his will or if the sheriff has to make
arrangements for his lord's funeral, or for that of his own
wife or son, he may claim to be excused.

Before he appears to make account he must pay what
is required of him and his payment must be assayed.

1 The reading nisi in the given below : the Oxford
Black Book appears to be edition has nee.
supported by the example

VI EXCUSES FOR NON-ATTENDANCE 149

This is the preliminary business at the Treasury
of Receipt.

1 Then he takes his seat at the Exchequer, and all the
other sheriffs are excluded. Before this he sends round
notice by means of a cryer to all persons whom it may
concern ^ on what day he is to attend. Then at the
appointed time the treasurer calls upon him to render
his account and asks him whether the allowances are
the same as in the preceding year. If this is the case,
the treasurer's writer copies out the roll of the preceding
year in regard to these allowances.

At this point bishop Richard leaves the subject
of the account which he had in fact dealt with in
an earlier chapter and to which he reverts near
the end of his book.^ I have given this long
extract — ^long, though I have very much abridged
it — ^because it gives a good example of the writer's
lucidity and care for details. But the manner in
which the account was completed will be best
explained in connexion with the form it took upon
the roll.

1 Dialogus i. 4 p. 220. logus, p. 215.

2 See the Notes to the Dia- ^ Dialogus ii. 27 p. 246.

VII
THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR

The account rendered by the sheriff at the
Exchequer was recorded on the great roll of the
year. In the Dialogue it is spoken of as the roll
of the Treasury {rotulus de thesauro ^), the roll of
the year (rotulus annalis ^), the great roll of the
year,^ or the great roll of accounts of the year
{magni annates compotorum rotuli *). It consisted
of a number of membranes, each of which was
called a pipe,^ because, as I presume, it naturally
rolled up and looked like a cylinder or pipe. That
this was the technical meaning of the word ' pipe '
can be proved from the reign of Edward II ; ^
la pipe was the single membrane containing the
account of a single sheriff,' though this sometimes
extended into two or more membranes separately
headed.^ By 1348 the combined roll is called la

1 i. 5 p. 178. Record Office, Lists and In-

2 i. 7 p. 194 ; II p. 205 ; dexes, xi), 1900 ; cf. sir J. H.
annalis simply, ii. 18 p. 240. Ramsay, in the English His-

3 ii. I p. 211. torical Review, xxvi. (1911)
* i. 14 p. 207. 329 f.

^ This is the official inter- ^ Red Book of the Ex-

pretation of the word, ' the chequer, pp. 858, 860.
** pipes " or membranes of the ^ Ibid., pp. 850, 874.
sheriff's normal county ac- ^ See Ramsay, ubi supra,

counts ' : introduction to List p. 330 ; and compare p. 749.
of Foreign Accounts (Public

VII PIPES AND ROLLS 151

pipe, and at a date which I have not ascertained
it becomes known as magnus rotulus pipae. But
this belongs only to later usage. The pipe roll
is a roll of pipes, just as a pine wood is a wood of
pines ; and any fanciful interpretation, such as
that which traces the name to the resemblance
of the bulky roll to a pipe or cask of wine, or to the
pipe or channel through which the king drew his
revenue, must be dismissed as unhistorical.

Each pipe consisted of two strips of sheepskin
sewn together to form one length. Bishop Richard
thinks that the material was chosen because it was
difficult to make an erasure upon it without leaving
a trace ; ^ and this may have been one reason for
its selection. But parchment (pergamena) meant
any writing material made from skin, whether of
sheep, goat, or calf ; and sheep's skin is said to
have been the most usual material, especially in
Italy, after papyrus became unobtainable. So
it is possible that the English clerks were merely
using what naturally came to hand. The length
of the double skin varied between 3 feet and
4 feet 8 inches. Its breadth is accurately described
in the Dialogue as a span and a half, that is, between
13J and 14 inches.^ When the pipes of all the
sheriffs and other accountants — to use the official

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 187. informed, was due to the im-

2 Late in the thirteenth provement in the breed of
century the rolls are some- sheep.

what broader. This, I am

152 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vil

phrase — were completed, they were filed at the
head, and thus made up into the great roll of the
year.^ The order in which the separate pipes
were stitched together was quite capricious, and
probably no roll presents the counties in the same
order.^

The roll was always cited as the roll of a given
year of the king's reign. It is essential to under-
stand exactly what this year means. The roll
was made up in Michaelmas, and the regnal year
is the year in which that Michaelmas fell.^ The
accounts it contains are the accounts of the twelve
months preceding that Michaelmas. Hence the
roll of a given regnal year may be concerned
largely or even mainly with the accounts of the
regnal year next preceding. Thus Richard Fs
reign is dated from his coronation on 3 September
1 189 : the roll was made up four weeks later, and
hence almost the whole of this roll of the ist year
of Richard I deals with the accounts of the 35th
year of Henry II. No roll for that 35th year ever

1 This mode of filing dis- arrangements of the accounts
tinguished the rolls of the in 31 Henry I and 2-6
Exchequer from those of the Henry II in the Introduction
Chancery, which begin under to the Study of the Pipe
John. The Chancery rolls Rolls, p. 52.

are sewn continuously so as ^ J. Hunter, preface to

to make one single roll, and Magnus Rotulus Scaccarii, 31

the membranes are numbered Henry I, p. xv ; Round,

backwards from that lowest Studies on the Red Book of

on the roll. the Exchequer, p. 21.

2 See a table of the various

VII THE EXCHEQUER YEAR 153

existed, because it began on 19 December and
therefore included no Michaelmas. This then is
the rule : the roll of a given year is the roll of
the Michaelmas which fell within that year.* It
is worth while mentioning here that when a roll
refers to the preceding year {praeteritus annus),
the third year, the fourth year, and the like, the
reckoning was always backwards until the reign of
John, when praeteritus annus was alone allowed,
and the years before that were cited by the
Exchequer years of the king ; so that in the third
year of John the references were to the last year,
then to the first year [of John], then to the tenth
year [of Richard I].^

The earliest pipe roll preserved ' is that of the
thirty-first year of Henry I which was edited by
Joseph Hunter in 1833. It was long believed to
be that of the fifth year of Stephen and is regularly
cited as such by Madox, but in a letter to lord
Somers which he appended to his book he proved
that it must belong to the reign of Henry I,* and

1 A neglect of this rule has ^ j^ Henry IH's time there
led to the misdating of a were more than one. Swer-
series of entries in the edition ford speaks of having inspected
of the Red Book of the Ex- paucos annales of the reign :
chequer, pp. 9-12, 70-184. Red Book of the Exchequer,

2 Madox, Disceptatio epi- p. 5.

stolaris addressed to lord * Disceptatio epistolarisj

Somers, pp. 68 f., appended pp. 70-75. He had previously

to the History of the Ex- expressed the same opinion

chequer ; Hunter, p. xi. in the preface to his Formu-

154 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

Hunter in the preface to his edition, which is
a model of historical criticism, demonstrated that
the year with which it dealt was the thirty-first
year, ending at Michaelmas 1130. Then there is
a gap and the regular series of rolls begins with
that of the second year of Henry IL^ A duplicate
or counter-roll was made for the chancellor ; and,
though this set is defective, it serves to supply
the few years in which the pipe roll is lost.

The form in which the roll was drawn up is
concisely explained in the section of the Dialogue
dealing with the treasurer's writer, or clerk of
the pells ; ^ its details are further elucidated in
nine chapters of the second book.^

The rolls are ruled from the top almost to the foot and on
both sides with lines at a seemly distance from one another,
and there are marked at the top of the roll the counties
and bailiwicks concerning which account is rendered
below. Then after a small space of three or four fingers'
breadths is written in the middle of the line the name
of the county to be first dealt with. Then at the beginning
of the next line the name of the sheriff is inserted, with the
words following, Such or such a sheriff renders account for
the farm of such or such a county. Then a little further in
the line is written, In the Treasury ; but the sum is not
added until the account is concluded.

lare Anglicanum (1702) § 6. of the first year is given by

Prynne in the appendix to Swerford, pp. 648-658.
Aurum Reginae, p. 5, assigned ^ i. 5 pp. 186 f.
the roll to 18 Henry I. ^ From the end of ii. 4

1 A summary of the roll p. 220 to ii. 12 p. 234.

VII ' SETTLED ' ALLOWANCES FROM FARM 155

The reason for this I have already explained : ^
the exact figures could not be set down until all the
deductions were made. Very often this entry is
preceded by a record of a specific payment de veteri
firma, that is for the arrears of the last year, or
even de tertio anno or the year before that. These
sums are reckoned by themselves and balanced with
the ' old farm ' ; they do not affect the account of
the farm of the current year.

Then at the beginning of the next line is entered what
has been expended from the farm of the county in alms
and appointed tithes and in livery [in liheratione).

These are the 'settled' or fixed allowances for
payments made by the sheriff out of pocket. The
alms paid to the knights templars are a regular
item. Most counties were charged with one
mark, but a few with two.^ The majority of the
towns and honours which accounted separately
paid nothing ; but nine of them were charged
with a mark each.^ The other alms paid differ
in different counties, and vary greatly in their
amount. Sometimes they indicate a payment
of one or more pennies a day : for instance, the

1 Above, pp. 130 f. 3 marks. Rutland was not

2 In the Roll of 23 Henry II charged.

Kent, London and Middlesex, 3 These in the same Roll

Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and were Winchester, Southamp-

Worcestershire each paid two ton, Lincoln, Northampton,

marks ; Essex and Hertford- Meon, Bosham, Waltham,

shire 4 marks jointly ; Nor- Higham [Ferrers], and the

folk and Suffolk together honour of Eye.

156 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk paid £4 iis. 3d.
to the brethren of the hospital at Norwich, that is
3d. a day.^ The tithes were paid to churches and
religious houses, and as a rule it is not said on
what property the tithe was assessed. Sometimes
however this is stated : for instance,

In tithes appointed to the canons of Colchester loos. for
the tithes of Hatfield.2

The liveries are in part hardly distinguishable
from alms. As is pointed out in the Dialogue,
they fall into two classes :

3 Some are for the needy, when from pure charity the
king assigns a man a penny or two, or more, a day for food
and raiment. Others are for servants, by way of wages :
such are paid to household servants, musicians, wolf-
catchers, and the like. Although the king may grant
liveries of the former sort to any needy persons, by old
custom they are given to those who have served in the
Court and possess no property and who have become
unable to work by reason of bodily infirmity.^

As examples of both kinds of bounty and of
payments in fixed sums as well as by the day

1 Roll of 23 Henry II, p. Censuforestede Sauernac. In
124. thesauro Aiii.li. et .xii.d. Et

2 Ibid., p. 144. A precise in Decimis Constitutis Canoni-
statement of the source of the cis Sarisberte .ix.s. Et Quietus
tithe appears in the account est.

of the forest of Wiltshire in the ^ [{ 5 p^ 221.

Roll of 3 Henry II, p. 79 : ^ In the Oxford edition this

Henricus Esturmi reddit Com- last sentence is bracketed as

potum de .iiii.li. et .x.s. de a gloss : see the Notes, p. 216.

VII TITHES AND LIVERIES 157

I may quote from the roll of the 23rd year of
Henry II under Surrey : ^

And in appointed livery to the sick in the queen's
hospital, 30s. 5d. And to John the almoner 30s. 5d. And
to the same 6s. 8d. for clothes. And to Brichtmar the
lame 5s. And to Roger son of Codulf 60s. lod. And to
John of the Chapel 60s. lod. And to Suein the velterer ^
30s. 5d.

Some charges in this class were really salaries
to public officials. Thus the master of the king's
yacht (esnecca) received a shilling a day, for
which the tallies were made by the chamberlains.®
Again, the sheriff of Kent regularly paid 20s.
to the porter of the city of Canterbury, quia
facit iustitiam comitatus,^ because he was the public
executioner. Down to modern times the rooms
over the west gate of Canterbury were the prison,
and we may still see there the cells and the
various implements of duress pertaining to such
a place. Sometimes payments from the county
farm were made in respect of towns which kept
a separate account. For example, the gatekeeper
and watchman of Dover received £6 is. 8d., or
4d. a day,^ because the king had a special
interest in securing the safety of one of his
principal seaports.

1 p. 192. 3 Dialogus i. 6 p. 193.

2 The man who had charge * Roll of 23 Henry II, p.
of 'greyhounds': see Round, 202.

The King's Serjeants, p. 269. ^ Ibid.

158 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

The description of the roll proceeds :

* After this, at the beginning of the next line, under the
head of terrae datae are noted the grants which the king
has made from his crown estates to churches or to those
who serve them,^ some blank, some by tale.

These grants of land were by no means only grants
to churches. In treating of the sheriff's account
as a whole I have pointed out the bearing of the
entry .^ The terrae datae were simply sums, as we
should say, written off. The lands were alienated
and the farm which the sheriff had to pay in to
the Treasury was reduced by their amount. The
distinction made between lands granted blank and
those granted by tale was of great importance to
the sheriff. To the grantee it made no difference
at all : he held the lands and had nothing to pay.
But the sheriff had to account for them at a dif-
ferent rate according to the mode of the grant.
Bishop Richard explains the distinction as follows :

* When the king grants an estate together with the
hundred court [cum hundredo) or the pleas which proceed
from it, they call that estate granted him blank : but
when he grants the estate simply and retains the hundred,
by which the farm is said to be blanched (dealbari), it
is called granted by tale.

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 186. quartus ante eum in ecclesia

2 Qui eis militarunt. The heati Pauli militavit : John of
word militare has passed into Salisbury, Epist. xxxix.

the general sense of ' serving '. ^ Above, pp. 134 f.
Cf. Ricardi bonae memoriae * Dialogus ii. 5 p. 220.
Lond. episcopi, . . . qui

^r^

VII TERRAE DATAE 159

If the hundred court was included in the grant the
sheriff was deprived of the profits of its pleas.
He was therefore permitted to recoup himself in
his account by charging the yearly rent blank ;
so that if that rent was £20, his farm was reduced
by £20 clear. If on the other hand the hundred
court was retained by the king, then his agent, the
sheriff, charged the amount of the rent by tale, and
thus reduced his farm not by £20 but by £ig.
The profits of the court were deemedjto equal
the difference between the two sums.

A different explanation of this passage has been c
given by the editors of the Dialogue,^ who think ' ^

that (a) the tenant paid an extra allowance for blanching \\ ij
at a fixed scale, (6) that he recouped himself from the
profits of the hundred court when they were granted to
him ; otherwise the allowance was found by the sheriff
from the same source.

But it seems to me that the tenant is not concerned
in the matter at all. Many of these terrae datae had
been alienated many years before, and they are
entered year after year at the rental which they
bore at the time of the grant. The sheriff has lost
so much out of his farm, and he deducts a corre-
sponding sum from the amount he pays in to the
Treasury. If he has lost both the rent and the
profits of the hundred court, he deducts the full
amount of the rent ; in other words he makes
the allowance blank. If he has lost the rent

1 Introduction, p. 33.

i6o THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

only, he makes the allowance numero, which
meant an amount diminished by 5 per cent. In
the former case the blanching is conventional or
automatic ; no assay takes place ; just as we have
seen the charge of £25 on the farm of Exeter
represented on the roll as £25 12s. 6d.^

These four classes of allowances — alms, tithes,
liveries, and lands granted — were made ' by the
custom of the Exchequer ' and did not need
the authority of writs from the king.^ All that
was necessary was to compare the items with
the entries in the preceding roU.^ But when a
grant of land was first made, the charter or writ
for it had to be presented at the Michaelmas session
of the Exchequer to authorize the allowance to
the sheriff.^ The changes in the other classes
were usually of such small sums that we may
take it that they were left to the sheriff's discretion.
The sheriff had however to produce his quittances
for every item to show that he had actually paid
all the monies for which he claimed allowance.

The next class consists of sums expended from the
farm by the king's writs, and its items are called
* casual ' in distinction from the ' settled ' disburse-
ments. In each entry the king's writ had to be

1 Above, p. 33. advance (Praestitum) or was

2 Dialogus i. 5 p. 186; ii. made quamdiu regi placuerit,
6 p. 221. it did not pass at a man's

3 ii. 4 p. 220. death to his heirs : ibid.,
* If the grant was an pp. 220 f.

VII ' CASUAL ' EXPENDITURE i6i

expressly mentioned, and this fact introduced a
difference in the procedure by which this whole
class of allowances was accounted for. Hitherto
it was the treasurer who examined the sheriff ; but
now the sheriff hands over the writs which he has
received to the chancellor's clerk, and he reads
them aloud and passes them on to the treasurer,
so that he may dictate the form of entry in the
roll.^ In some cases, as in building works, it was
not possible to state beforehand in the writ the
precise amount of expenditure authorized. It
therefore named two or three men who were to
' view ' the work, and they had to appear at the
Exchequer and certify upon oath that the sum
charged by the sheriff was duly expended. Another
writ, or precept, in which the sum was named, was
then drawn up at the Exchequer under the witness
of the president ; and then the sheriff received his
allowance.^

These payments by writ are from an historical
point of view by far the most interesting on the roll.
They give information about the king's movements,
they tell us what guests arrived from abroad, they
furnish evidence of the hospitaUty maintained at
the Court and of the building works in progress,
and even tell us particulars about dress and other
personal matters. Specimens may be found under
every county, but Hampshire and London and
Middlesex supply perhaps the most abundant
1 Dialogus ii. 6 p. 221. 2 jj^ g p 223.

1376 M

i62 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

materials of historical interest. I quote some
extracts from a pipe of the latter county :

^ For ten casks of wine sent to Nottingham against
Christmas £io by the king's writ. And for carriage of the
same wine 40s. by the same writ. For three casks of
French wine and two barrels of wine of Lorraine sent to
Woodstock £6 14s. by the same writ. And for carting
the same wine 4s. by the same writ. And for harness
for the packhorse of the king's chapel 9s. by the king's
writ. And for 100 ells of red scarlet and again for other
12 ells of red scarlet and for 12 ells of Persian scarlet and
for 20 divers gowns and for 10 cloths of lawn [and other
drapery] £92 14s. 5d. by the king's writ. . . . And to
Alnot5 the engineer 20 marks for repairing the king's
chamber at Westminster by the king's writ and by view
of Edward Blund and William Grand. . . . And for
3000 lb. of wax /43 9s. yd. by [the king's] writ. And for the
king's tent and for cloth and ropes for making the same
tent £15 17s. id. by the same writ. . . . And in payments
(in soltis) by the king's writ to certain Jews £73 3s. 3d.
And to Roger Falistorp the falconer 20s. in advance upon
his livery by the king's writ.

Besides these allowances for expenditure by
writ, there were certain others which, though not
so authorized, were admitted, like the alms and
liveries which appear earlier on the roll, by the
custom of the Exchequer. The principal charges
under this head were those arising out of the
administration of justice. First, there were the
expenses of executing sentences (iustitiae) and con-
ducting ordeals {iudicia)? Secondly, regular wages

1 Roll of 23 Henry H, pp. 197 f .

2 Dialogus ii. 6, 7 pp. 221 f .

VII EXPENDITURE ' BY CUSTOM ' 163

of a penny a day and the cost of their transport
were paid to approvers (probatores) who, to
escape the full penalty of their crime, ' turned/
as we should say, ' king's evidence ' or acted as
champions in trial by battle.^ The sheriff was.
also allowed to charge without writ for the con-
veyance of the king's treasure from place to place
by order of the treasurer and chamberlains or of
their servant s.^

3 Again, if a sturgeon, turbot, or whale, or any sea
beast of this sort is caught, the sheriff supplies what is
necessary for pickling and other requirements and is
allowed without writ. Again, he can incur expenditure
on the king's vines and their vintage,* and in supplying
vessels and other necessaries on his oath without writ.

With these charges, whether with or without writ,
the account of the corpus comitatus, or principal
farm, is brought to a conclusion. Then

after a small space is put the account of the arrears de
veteri firma comitatus, that is of any sums which chance to
remain over from the previous year, supposing that the
sheriff who was then in office was changed ; but if the
same sheriff continues in the present year he makes his
discharge for the old farm before beginning his account
for the new.^

Any entries which follow are those of distinct
accounts, for instance of guilds, which were paid

1 ii. 7 p. 222. for instance, in Huntingdon-

2 Ibid., pp. 222 f. shire : Roll of 5 Henry II,

3 Ibid., p. 223. p. 54.

* The king had a vineyard, ^ See above, p. 155.

M 2

i64 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

in full or balanced separately. In working out the
account of a farm we have to begin by taking
all the payments blank as net payments and all
the others, whether specified as numero or not,
as payments by tale. All the payments by tale
have to be ' blanched ' or diminished by a shilling
in the pound, eight pence in the mark, and so in
proportion, down to a penny in twenty pence.
The simplest plan of reckoning the figures is to
cast up the two classes of payments separately, and
then to reduce the payments numero and add their
sum to the total of the payments blank. When the
whole amount is arrived at, we have to reckon in
the sum paid into the Treasury and the debit
balance, and the resulting figures give the amount
of the farm. If the balance is a surplus, it must be
deducted.

We must be careful however not to add up the
figures mechanically, without noticing that there
is an irregularity in the roll ; for the model
described in the Dialogue could not always, in
the pressure of business, be exactly followed. I
may give an example from the Gloucestershire
account for the 22nd year of Henry 11.^ This first
concludes with the words, ' And he owes £2y 19s. 8d.
and renders account for that debt.' Then it is
remembered that only a half-year's rent had been
entered for William Pinkney's lands at Slaughter
and Cheltenham instead of that for a whole year.

^ p. 123.

VII THE TOTAL OF THE FARM 165

So a new entry is made : ' And in lands granted to
William of Pinkeni by the king's writ £15 by tale/
that is £14 5s. blank. ' And he owes £13 14s. 8d.
blank/ which is the difference between £2y 19s. 8d.
and £14 5s. Another caution may be added. It is
very easy to misread the figures in the roll, not only
because they are written in Roman numerals but
also because they are often expressed in unfamiliar
forms, as 'vi. li. xiid.',^ or where an unusual
denomination, such as a mark of gold, is mentioned.
But if we read the rolls with care, it is extremely
seldom that we shall find any error in their reckon-
ing, though it must be confessed that many mistakes
have been made by those who have attempted to
expound their method.^

When the account of the sheriff's farm is ended,
the second — ^usually by far the longer — part of

1 Thus in the Ramsey char- Rameseia, i (1884) 227, and

tulary an extract from the note 10.
Roll of 4 John is entered in 2 Yot example, the explana-

which the words c. et xiii. li. tion of the sheriff's account

et X. d. et ob. are miscopied as given with a specimen balance

de centum tredecimlibr is decern sheet of 5 Henry H in the

solidis obolo. The editors have Introduction to the Pipe

noted the variant but profess Rolls, pp. 48-51, omits to

themselves unable to see that blanch the terrae datae and

it explains the difference be- erroneously excludes £30 at

tween the sum of the items as Trentham, with the result

printed, £396 19s. 3d., and that the farm of Staffordshire

the correct total, ;f396ios. id.: appears as £112 7s. iid.

Chartularium Monasterii de instead of £140.

i66 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

the account begins. It differs from the earUer
part in two respects. The entries under the farm
were all expressed, as I have said, in terms of
negatives, as deductions from a fixed sum. I have
often spoken of them as charges or payments,
for such in fact they were ; but from the point
of view of the account they were discharges or
allowances. In the following part, on the contrary,
all the sums mentioned are sums actually due from
the sheriff to the Exchequer. Many of them were
indeed reduced by payments by the king's writ,
and in many cases the sheriff was not able to get in
all the money for which he was responsible. But
still it was all a matter of direct payment not of
deduction from a fixed amount. It was probably
a consequence of the fact that the payments had
not to be deducted from a definite sum but were
simply charged as they stood, that the entries under
the following heads are by no means so regularly
arranged as those of the ' principal account ' . The
titles of the subdivisions are often omitted, and
entries often appear in unexpected places.

First, after a space of six or seven lines, there
follows the farm of purprestures and encroach-
ments, and of manors and woods from which a
yearly rent was due and paid.^

2 In the middle of the line is written in large letters the
heading De purpresturis et esceatis, and at the beginning
of the next, The same sheriff renders account for the farm

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 186. 2 \\ jq p 225.

VII PURPRESTURES AND ESCHEATS 167

of purprestures and escheats, to wit, for £10 from this man
and for £20 from that, and so forth, according to the form
entered from the roll of the itinerant justices in the roll
of the year : total £100. Then at the end of the same hne
where the total is given, follows In the Treasury £20 in
so many tallies, and he owes four score pounds, or He has
paid into the Treasury and is quit.

The purprestures (or propresturae as they are
called in the rolls) are encroachments by building or
occupation upon royal lands by private persons, the
value of which was assessed by the itinerant justices
and the rent levied by the sheriff.^ With them
are included payments for assarts or clearings in
the forest. The escheats, or profits of escheated
lands, are in like manner grouped with other
feudal incidents, wardships and reliefs. Sometimes
other miscellaneous payments are found under
this heading, such as arrears of scutage and charges
for which a reference to other parts of the roll are
added. It was a convenient place for entering
various small items which formed neither part of the
farm nor of the more considerable sections of the roll
recorded later on. I should add that many of the
rents received from escheats were charged with
payments by the king's writ, and were diminished
by terrae datae, so that their account has the
appearance of a miniature sheriff's farm ; but there
is here no balance : the monies received are

1 See the Tractatus de Legi- Glanvill, ix. 11 (ed. 1780)
bus et Consuetudinibus Regni p. 150.
Angliae, attributed to Ranulf

i68 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vn

accounted for in full. The rents of woods and forests
are a small item, entered as follows : The same
sheriff, or another named, renders account for £20
for the rent of such or such a wood or forest of
Northamptonshire} Some of these rents were
charged with tithes to cathedral churches ;
in Northamptonshire payable to Lincoln,^ in
Wiltshire and Hampshire to Salisbury.^ All these
entries are found mixed up with the purprestures
and escheats, and are sometimes added after the
farm without any special heading.^ Among them
appear the assessments of royal manors which
were not included in the farm because they did
not pass into the king's hands until a time subse-
quent to the settlement of the farm : such were
King's Bromley and Newcastle in Staffordshire.
The second division of this part of the roll is
perfunctorily dealt with in the first book of the
Dialogue,^ where it is simply said that ' after a
space there is given an account of the debts for
which the sheriff is summoned, with the names
of the judges to whom they belong \ This indicates
what is commonly a very long series of entries,
most of them of small amount, specifying the
profits arising from judicial proceedings. It also
includes the whole series of taxes levied on land-

1 Dialogus ii. 11 pp. 231 f. ^ ibid., pp. 98, 167.

2 Thus in the Roll of 23 * Thus under Worcester-
Henry II p. ^%, shire, ibid., p. 64.

M. 5 p. 187.

VII LAND TAXES AND JUDICIAL PROFITS 169

holders under the names of Danegeld, scutage,
donum, aid, and tallage.^ Bishop Richard tells us
something of these latter payments in a different
connexion, but says not a word of them in his
description of the roll. Perhaps he was justified,
for the proceeds of these great sources of revenue,
or so much of them as the sheriff could collect, were
paid in as they were received, and were therefore
of Uttle interest from the point of view of the form
of the account, all the less because the order in
which they were recorded was extremely capricious.
The judicial profits are entitled placita et con-
ventioneSy pleas and covenants or agreements.
We should call them aUke ' fines ' ; but the
distinction is between payments which are com-
pulsory and those which are optional {oblata
spontanea).^ If a man is convicted by the king's
court, whether coram rege or before the justices
itinerant, he is at the king's mercy and can only
escape by payment of a prescribed sum of money,
an ' amercement '. If on the other hand he wishes
to obtain seisin of land claimed by him, he sues
for it and when successful pays a ' fine ', because
it is the end of the litigation. These payments
were distinguished as oblata in rem and ohlata in
spem.^ The former are those in which a man offers

1 Scutage, the murder fine, chequer,ini.9-ii pp. 201-204.

and Danegeld are discussed, ^ jj^ 12 p. 232.

in connexion with the exemp- ^ g^g fQj- what follows ii. 23

tion of the officers of the Ex- pp. 242 f .

170 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

a sum of money, and the king accepts it, for
obtaining a franchise or estate, or the wardship
of a minor, or anything else which enures to his
advantage or honour. The latter are offered for
access to the king's court or for hastening pro-
ceedings at law, not (bishop Richard is careful to
explain) for securing a favourable sentence. The
money is not paid until the suit is determined. If
the suitor neglects to proceed, he is still required
to pay, though the king may abate the amount.
If his action fails, he pays nothing. For every fine
levied the queen received * her gold ' (aurum
reginae), a tax of a mark of gold, or six pounds, on
every hundred marks of silver, that is to say, of
9 per cent., and her clerk attended at the Exchequer
to claim the payment.^ The section of the roll
headed Nova placita et novae conventiones contains
the sums charged at the eyre of the itinerant
justices during the current year. Sometimes the
justices are named ; sometimes, when they are
not called ' new ', the pleas are of a preceding eyre.^

1 Dialogus ii. 26 p. 244. In Katherine his Aurum Reginae

the seventeenth century it was or a compendious Tractate

sought to revive the claim of and chronological Collection

the queen consort. Besides of Records in the Tower and

the treatise by Hakewill men- Court of Exchequer concern-

tioned above, p. 16 note (see ing Queen-Gold,
the Calendar of State Papers, ^ Sge bishop Stubbs's pre-

Domestic Series, 1603-1610, face to the Gesta Henrici, ii.

p. 383), William Prynne in p. Ixiii note 2.
1668 dedicated to queen

VII PROFITS OF JUSTICE 171

The returns were taken from the justices* rolls
and, like the later items in the sheriff's farm, were
checked not by the treasurer but by the chancellor's
clerk. The amercements for the forest usually
form a separate heading and amount to a consider-
able sum. A short entry ' from those who have
paid in full ' (de his qui totum reddiderunt) is a com-
pendious statement of arrears paid in, commonly
of small amounts, with a reference for the parti-
culars to the roll of the preceding year ; but pay-
ments belonging to the current year are often
added under the same heading. The payment of
fines was as a rule spread over more than one
year.

The difference of the principle on which Danegeld
and scutage and aid were assessed and the arbitrary
nature of the donum and tallage do not affect the
account : the sheriff has only to state the sums
due and the sums collected. What interests the
Exchequer is to be sure that the deductions made
from them were correct. For not only were many
persons relieved from Danegeld, scutage, and the
murder fine, and their quittance had to be recorded ;
but also a part or the whole of a number of fines
and amercements was forgiven by the king, and
the writ authorizing the discharge had to be
produced.

Finally there is a heading * Of the chattels of
fugitives and persons mutilated ' (De catallis
fiigitivorum et mtitilatorum) , under which are

172 THE GREAT ROLL OF THE YEAR vii

entered the proceeds of the sale of the effects of
criminals.^ These are paid in in fulL

Outside the sheriff's account, though included
in the same roll, are the accounts of the cities,
boroughs, and honours which accounted sepa-
rately. They were only a limited number : the
Dialogue mentions as examples Lincoln, Win-
chester, Meon, Berkhampsted, and Colchester;^
in all there were about fourteen boroughs ^ and
a varying number of honours which so accounted.
London of course stood on a special footing, since
from near the end of Henry I's reign its citizens
held the county of Middlesex at a farm, and
thenceforward London and Middlesex constituted
an indivisible unit.* These accounts of boroughs
and honours were drawn up exactly like farms of
counties on a smaller scale, with their alms and
liveries, terrae datae and allowances; and they
were balanced separately. Each may be followed
by entries of amercements and fines, aids and
scutage. The normal position of these indepen-
dent accounts was at the end of the counties to
which they belonged ; but there are many excep-
tions to this rule.

1 Dialogus i. 5 p. 187. which were probably paid

2 i. 5 p. 186. through the sheriff.

3 Dr. Parow, pp. 29 f., ^ g^e Round, Geoffrey de
reckons 42 ; but he includes Mandeville, pp. 343-373 ; and
a number of farms which do compare The Commune of
not appear under distinct London, pp. 229-235.
headings on the roll and

VII SEPARATE FARMS ; THE BALANCE 173

When the account of a particular sheriff has
been adjusted, then at length a balance is struck
with the farm as recorded on the tax roll.

^ First, the calculator distributes counters in the proper
spaces corresponding to the farm paid in at the current
term. Then the sum which has been tested is blanched by
the amount of the ' combustion ' [or loss by the assay],
a little tally with a note of that amount is attached
to the tally [of the unblanched sum], and the remainder
is recorded upon it. In like manner what was paid and
blanched at Easter is recorded on the same tally. The two
* combustions ' are combined upon it. Then the treasurer
brings forth the tax roll (rotulus exactorius) and causes the
amount of the farm to be shown by counters on the board
on the side nearest him. Below this sum is first deducted
the sum paid into the Treasury and blanched ; secondly
the lands granted by the king blank ; thirdly the pay-
ments by the king's writ or otherwise, each of these last
being blanched by a deduction of I2d. in the pound.

The sum was done simply by removing the
counters in pairs from the upper and the lower
rows. If nothing was left the sheriff was declared
quit, Et quietus est ; if there was anything remaining
in the upper row of counters, the sum was entered
in a fresh line on the roll, with the words Et debet
so much. Then at last the figures indicating the
amount paid into the Treasury were inserted at
the head of the roll. It was left to the end in order
to avoid the risk of having to make erasures,
' which should be specially avoided in numbers
and names and causes.'

i^Dialogus ii. 27 p. 246.

VIII

THE EXCHEQUER AND THE KING'S COURT

In the two earliest examples that have been
found of the use of the word Exchequer its barons
appear as officers of the law. In one they are to
constrain a sheriff to make a payment out of his
farm : ^ in the other the bishop of London is com-
manded to do full right to the abbot of West-
minster as touching the men who broke into
a church of his by ar ms at night ; otherwise the
barons of the Exchequer should cause it to be
done that the king might hear no complaint of
it for default of right.^ One might infer from
these instances that there existed a Court of
Exchequer which had cognizance both of civil
and criminal pleas. But this inference would be
premature : there is no mention yet of a Court.
As soon as the Court is named, it is * the king's
Court at the Exchequer ', just as a few years
before the Exchequer was established a suit was
heard ^ in the king's Court in the Treasury \^

1 Above, p. 39. The writ cis S. Trinitatis Londoniae],

is addressed Rogero episcopo sicut faceretis de mea propria

Saresberiae et baronibus scac- firma : Madox ix. 2 p. 188 ;'.
carii, and the order is ut ita 2 Above, p. 39.
constringatis vicecomitem ut eas ^ Above, p. 34 note 2.
[xxv libras] reddat eis [canoni-

VIII PLEAS AT THE EXCHEQUER 175

The pleas which were held first in the Treasury
and then at the Exchequer were alike held in the
king's Court. What is the meaning of the com-
bination, ' in the king's Court at the Exchequer ' ?
We know that proceedings in the royal palace,
wherever the king might be, were conducted in
the king's Court, whether they were heard by the
king in person or by his justiciar. But the pleas
heard before the justices itinerant were equally
pleas in the king's Court.^ ' We are tempted,'
says Maitland,^ ' to use terms which are more
precise than those that were current in the twelfth
century. In particular we are wont to speak
of the Curia Regis without remembering that the
definite article is not in our documents. Any
court held in the king's name by his delegates is
Curia Regis.' The distinction is that of the sort
of justice administered : it is the king's justice,
as contrasted with that of the local courts of the
hundred and shire or the feudal courts of the
manor and franchise. This justice was not to be

1 Mr. Round gives reasons served, and though the levy

for believing that, at the ear- is not stated to have been

liest time for which fines made in the king's Court in

(that is, final concords) are the latter cases, the precedent

preserved, a distinction was plea is so stated : see Feudal

made between fines levied England, pp. 509-515 ; and

' in the king's Court before The earUest Fines, in the

the justices ' and those ' be- English Historical Review,

fore the justices ' when the xii (1897) 293-302.
king was absent ; but the 2 History of English Law,

distinction was not long pre- i. 132.

176 THE EXCHEQUER AND KTNG^S COURT viii

had for nothing. It was necessary to obtain a writ
and to pay a fine. The advantages of a hearing
before a more competent and experienced body
of judges than could be found in the local courts
was not at once appreciated. So far as our
information goes, in the earlier time the king's
Court, except so far as it held the pleas of the
crown, only gradually developed from a Court for
tenants in chief to a Court to which recourse could
be taken ' for default of justice ' in the lower
courts ; but by degrees it acquired popularity
and the number of suits brought before it became
very large.

Now the king had no public buildings which
were definitely set apart for legal proceedings.
He had his Hall in the palace of Westminster,
where he or his justiciar heard causes coram rege ;
and near by there was the Exchequer which was
only used for its special purposes for two short
periods in the year. Moreover, there existed no
professional body of judges. The justiciar, the
capitalis iustitia as he is called in the Dialogue,
was no more a professional judge than are the
lords justices who to this day are appointed in
Ireland during the absence of the lord lieutenant :
he was the king's vicegerent. Now in the Ex-
chequer there was to be found a staff of men,
by origin members of the Household, who were
habitually accustomed to decide questions con-
nected with the revenue. When, as was constantly

VIII PLEAS AT THE EXCHEQUER 177

the case, they recorded fines paid for the settle-
ment of rights to land and such matters, the
record indicated the result of a process of legal
inquiry. It may be said that the * higher business ',
the scientia,^ of the Exchequer was throughout
judicial. With this, the only available, staff at
hand, it was natural that the king should look
to it for the consideration of suits which mostly
arose over questions of property and possession.
The pleas of the crown, criminal justice, he
reserved in theory for his own hearing : those
which concerned the rights of his subjects he
handed over to the Exchequer ; and when he
dealt with them throughout the country by means
of itinerant justices, the justices he employed
were not only sheriffs, great churchmen, and
other county magnates, but also — sometimes the
majority or all of them ^ — were men who acted at
the Exchequer board. If this view is correct, it
will follow that, when we read that a cause was
heard 'in the king's Court at the Exchequer',
the words ' at the Exchequer ' indicate merely
that it was heard at a certain place and before
the barons ; ^ it will not exclude the fact that the
barons might equally be called upon to hold pleas
coram rege elsewhere.

1 See above, p. 103. 3 xhis is the opinion of

2 See below, p. 179 and Edward Foss, The Judges of
note 2. England, ii (1848) 167 ; cf.

i. 178 f.

1576 2^

178 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT yiii

An interesting passage in the Dialogue^ tells
us of a thalamus secretorum,^ a privy chamber,
situate hard by the house where the Exchequer
was.

Hither the barons repair when a doubtful point is laid
before them at the Exchequer, concerning which they
prefer to treat apart rather than in the ears of all, but
especially that they may not hinder the accounts which
are being rendered : so, while they are occupied in their
counsels, the accustomed course of the account proceeds ;
but if any new question arises, it is referred to them.

It is possible that this was the king's privy
chamber in the palace, for in the roll of the
seventh year of Richard I there is a payment

2 for two cloths bought for the Exchequer of the barons
in the king's thalamus and for another Exchequer in solio,

where solium I take to mean an upper chamber.*
It is tempting to see here the Court of Exchequer,
a Court for revenue cases, fully established. But
it would be dangerous to speak, as Foss seems to
do,^ of that Court as already ' a constituent part

1 i. 7 pp. 195 f. Madox's explanation ' the

2 Madox, iv. 9 p. 130 b, c, Throne-like Exchequer (per-
quotes instances from the haps because it was framed
rolls of 8 Richard I and later like a Throne or Court) * seems
of payments for the furniture wanting in probability. Foss,
of the thalamus baronum, i. 180, thinks that a throne was

3 Quoted by Madox, p. 130^. set there.

* There is evidence in ^ The Judges of England,
Ducange for the use of solium ii. 167.
as equivalent to solarium.

VIII PLEAS AT THE EXCHEQUER 179

of the Curia Regis, but still a distinct branch,
confined to the revenue '. I would rather put it
in this way. The barons of the Exchequer were
invested with judicial power primarily over dis-
puted matters which arose out of claims and
counter-claims relating to the king's revenue.
Their experience in such matters led naturally
to their being employed in the hearing of suits
between subjects, of common pleas ; but neither
did this create a Court of Common Pleas, for
such pleas might be held elsewhere than in the
Exchequer.

In 1 178 indeed Henry II may have designed to
place them under separate judicature. The author
of the Gesta Regis Henrici tells us, in a well-known
passage, that

^ the king made enquiry as touching the justices whom
he had appointed in England, whether they treated the
men of the kingdom weU and with moderation ; and when
he learned that the land and the people of the land were
greatly burthened by so great a multitude of justices,
for they were in number eighteen,'^ he by the counsel of
the wise men of his realm chose five only, namely two
clerks and three laymen, and they were all of his private
Household. And he ordained that these five should hear
all complaints of the kingdom, and do right ; and that
they should not depart from the king's Court, but should
remain there to hear the complaints of the people ; so

1 i. 207 f. Exchequer : ' Stubbs, Con-

2 ' All the eighteen justices stitutional History of Eng-
of 1176 were officers of the land, § 163.

N 2

i8o THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT viii

that if any question arose among them which they could
not bring to a termination, it should be presented to the
king and determined as might seem good to him and
to the wise men of the realm.

This statement has been taken by bishop Stubbs ^
and by Mr. Melville Bigelow^ to describe the
origination of the Court of king's Bench ; but
the words mentioning the suits to be heard point
rather to common pleas. Moreover, a different
arrangement was made in the next year, and the
six judges then appointed were also sent out on
eyre in the northern counties. Neither expedient
seems to have been of permanent importance.

Meanwhile there is abundant evidence of common
law suits being heard at the Exchequer. For in-
stance, when, towards the end of Henry II's reign,
the king entrusted the abbacy of Abingdon during
a vacancy to one of his clerks, this guardian seized
not only the possessions belonging to the abbot's
' chamber ' but also the estates of the monastery
into the king's hand. The prior therefore brought
the matter before the justiciar Ranulf Glanvill
and claimed that the rights of the monastery were
protected by charter. He went to the justiciar at
the Exchequer, and Glanvill took counsel * with the
bishops and other justices who sat with him at the
Exchequer ', and gave judgement in favour of the

1 Preface to the Gesta land, § 233.
Henrici, i. pp. Ixxi, Ixxiv f. ; 2 History of Procedure, p.
Constitutional History of Eng- 89.

VIII COMMON PLEAS i8i

monks. ^ This was manifestly not a meeting of
the board of Exchequer, but of the king's Court
sitting there.

A class of suit which was very commonly heard
before the barons of the Exchequer was that which
led to a final concord or fine of land. When it
first appears it was already a collusive suit between
two parties, one of whom desired to sell and the
other to buy ; there was a simulated conflict and
a final concord settled by a payment of money
and the drawing up of a chirograph or indenture
in two parts, recording the transaction. This deed
was brought before the Court and sealed. The
advantage of this procedure was that it secured
the evidence of the record and that the authority
of the Court protected the demandant.^ It can
be traced in principle to a much earlier time ;
and the form which became regular emerges in
1170.^ In this example there is a slight variation
of phrase [concordia simply, instead of finalis con--
cordia), but otherwise the type is already estab-
lished. From 1 175 a series of final concords is
preserved : * some are made before the justices

1 Chronicon Monasterii de Historical Review, xii. 300 f .
Abingdon, ii. 297 * * See Round, ubi supra,

2 Pollock a*. X Maitland, pp. 293-300, and Feudal Eng-
History of English Law, ii. land, pp. 509-516 ; Maitland,
94 ff. introduction to Select Pleas of

3 Chartae antiquae DD. 31, the Crown, i (1888) pp. xxvii,
printed by Mr. Round, The xxviii.

earliest Fines, in the English

i82 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT vni

itinerant, but when the suit was held at West-
minster, it was frequently at the Exchequer.
The record is sometimes entered at length on the
pipe roll, even when the fine is not said to have
been made at the Exchequer.^ In 1195 it was
ordered that the indenture should be tripartite,
and that the third part should be preserved as
a record in the Treasury. This was called the
pes finis, the foot of the fine, where it is suggested
that there is a confusion between the Latin pes
and the Old French pes, meaning peace or concord.
The feet of fines preserved from that date form an
important body of evidence for the history of the
conveyance of lands. ^

Many other common pleas continued to be held
at the Exchequer, and it is not until the reign of
John that the justices in banco, the justices of the
common Bench or, as they were called later, of
common pleas, definitely make their appearance.^
Whether any sharp distinction was yet made
between this body of judges who held these pleas
and those who heard cases coram rege, the future
judges of the king's Bench, is a difficult question,
and one which does not concern our present

1 The earliest instance ap- 8 Richard I were issued by the
pears to be a chirograph of Pipe Roll Society in 1896.

I December 1182, which is ^ See Maitland's argument
entered on the Roll of the pre- in the introduction to Select
ceding Michaelmas, 28 Henry Pleas of the Crown, i. pp. xiii-

II pp. 107 f . xix. Foss, ii. 165-173, was of

2 The Feet of Fines of 7 and a different opinion.

VIII COMMON PLEAS 183

purpose. All that we are interested to show is
that a separation of Courts was not an essential
element in the development. When the Great
Charter made a famous enactment about common
pleas, it said nothing about a distinct Court : it
ordered simply that they should not follow the
king*s Court but should be held in a certain
fixed place.^ For many years afterwards it is
impossible to separate the judges who held com-
mon pleas from those who held pleas coram rege ; ^
and it may be doubted whether even as late as
1258 the king's Bench can be considered to have
been definitively constituted.^ So too we have
to wait until 1234 before we find persons formally
appointed to be barons of the Exchequer/ until
1236 before the plea-rolls of the Court begin,^ and
until 1317 before the existing treasurer, Walter of
Norwich, is created in reward of his long services

^ Article 17. In exactly the 1258 described in the Calendar

same way William I enacted of Patent Rolls, Henry III,

that nullus episcopus vel archi- 1247-1258, p. 652; 1908.

diaconus de legibus episcopali- ■* Close Rolls, Henry III,

bus ampUus in hundret placita 1231-1234, pp. 569 f,, 1905.

teneant (Liebermann, Gesetze ^ There is one roll of Henry

der Angelsachsen, i. 485). He Ill's 2oth-2ist year, and

did not, as has been sup- there are two of the 43rd

posed, thereby establish a new to the 45th year ; but the

Court; he merely forbade that regular series begins in the

certain pleas should be held 51st year : Lists and Indexes,

in the hundred court. Public Record Office, iv, ed.

2 See Foss, ii. 174-186. 1910, p. 66.

3 See the writ of 3 October

i84 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT viii

chief baron of the Exchequer.^ The Court of
Exchequer did not acquire jurisdiction in equity
until Tudor times. In Hke manner there is no
need to speak in this place of the Court of
Chancery, for that Court has not yet come into
existence.^

But it will not be amiss to say something of the
Chancery as an office of administration, because
not merely was its business closely connected at
many points with that of the Exchequer but there
is reason to believe that that business was carried
on in the same building. We are so much accus-
tomed to the separation of public offices, when
every office has a distinct building and all the
higher officials have rooms to themselves, that
it is difficult to imagine the whole machinery of
government being carried on in one place. Yet
until recent times it was common in our great
public schools for several classes or forms to
receive their several instruction in a single room.
And so it was with the administration staff of the
early Plant agenet kings. The Chancery, the body
of clerks under the chancellor who did the king's
secretarial business, sat in the Exchequer ; and the
arrangement was the easier, since the Exchequer
only sat for a limited time at two periods of the

1 Madox xxi. 3 p. 585 g. acted by the king's commis-

2 Of course the chancellor sion as a member of the Court,
might be and was employed not because he was chancellor.
on judicial business, but he

VIII CHANCERY 185

year, and when it sat required clerks from the
Chancery to check and ' control * the accounts.^

That the head of this office, the chancellor, was
not a dignitary of the highest rank may be argued
from the fact that no bishop was appointed
chancellor until after the death of Henry 11.^
All this time when a chancellor was made a bishop
he ceased to be chancellor either at once or very
soon afterwards.^ But the office was growing in
importance, and under Richard I its tenure by
a bishop was admitted. WilHam of Longchamp
became chancellor on the king's accession, in less
than a fortnight he was elected bishop of Ely,
and soon afterwards was made justiciar as well.
In October 1191 he was ejected from the justiciar-
ship and left England ; but he retained the title
of chancellor until his death in 1197. He was
succeeded as chancellor by Eustace, who followed
him also as bishop of Ely. These two officers
mark the time of transition, when a chancellor
might retain the king's seal after promotion to

1 See above, pp. 113 ff. ^ Henry I's chancellor Geof-

2 Henry's son Geoffrey was, frey, who was consecrated
it is true, elect of Lincoln bishop of Durham in August
when he was made chancellor 1133, seems to have continued
in 1181 ; but he was required chancellor until the end of the
to resign the see. For this reign. But all this time the
resignation, however, there king was abroad, and may
were other reasons, and too have been unwilling to make
much stress should not be laid a change.

upon it.

i86 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT viii

a bishopric. Next after them came the first
prelate who was appointed chancellor, no less a
man than Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canter-
bury, who was given the seal at the accession of
John and kept it until his death in July 1205.

When the Chancery was removed into a building
of its own has not been definitely ascertained.
Madox thought that the change took place in the
course of Richard Ts reign, but he put forward his
opinion only as a conjecture.

1 It appears that when K. Richard was in foreign parts,
William de Longchamp the king's chief justicier and
chancellour was put out of his office of chief justicier by
the power and intrigue of John earl of Moreton. After
which, although he continued chancellour for some short
time, it is likely he did not attend and act at the Exchequer
as before. By which means, the business of the Chancery
which used to be done at the Exchequer might, probably,
be done in another place, or might be put into a new
method. In which new or separate method it might after-
wards continue ; as in truth it hath ever since continued,
in this particular. I cannot say, that the separation of the
Chancery from the Exchequer was brought about purely
by the means or in the manner here mentioned. However,
it is, I suppose, a happy thing in the event : because
thereby the publick have gained many bundles of Chancery-
rolls, which are very historical and instructive.

Since, however, WiUiam Longchamp left England
immediately after his removal from the justiciar-
ship in 1191 and never came back to England, he
cannot have been directly responsible for any

1 iv. 10 p. 132.

VIII SEPARATION OF THE CHANCERY 187

changes in the official machinery which were made
after that date.

I am disposed rather to trace the reorganiza-
tion of business and of offices which marks the
reigns of Richard I and John to the activity
of Hubert Walter. He, more than any man
of his time, united within himself experience
in every branch of the administration. He had
served as a baron of the Exchequer as early as
1184; he had kept Henry H's seal when he was
abroad in 1189 ; ^ on his return from the crusade
he was justiciar during years when finance was
the most pressing call upon his energies ; and he
was finally chancellor. The nephew of the great
justiciar Ranulf Glanvill, it has been suggested
that he was in fact the author of the treatise on the
Laws and Customs of the Kingdom which has
passed for seven hundred years as the work of his
uncle.^ Though it may be true that the practice
of enrolling the pleas of the king's Court was
adopted from the Exchequer before his time,^
yet the regular series of rolls begins in 1194 soon
after he was made justiciar.^ His knowledge of the

1 Epistolae Cantuarienses, Exchequer of the Jewry as
ed. Stubbs, 1865, PP- 282 f., a separate but subordinate
284. office of account also belongs

2 Pollock and Maitland, to about this time, between
History of English Law, i. 11 94 and 1198 : see Charles
143- Gross, The Exchequer of the

3 See above, p. 117. Jews of England, in Papers
* The establishment of the read at the Anglo-Jewish

i88 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT viii

business of government in all its branches, financial,
judicial, and administrative, would naturally sug-
gest to him the convenience of making the secre-
tary's office, the Chancery, a separate department.
Now on the coronation of John on 27 May 1199
Hubert was appointed chancellor, and three weeks
later we find the system already established of
enrolling the charters and writs of the Chancery,
on a method analogous to the enrolments of the
king's Court and of the Exchequer, which con-
tinued unchanged in principle down to modern
times. ^ The introduction of this system does not
of course necessarily coincide with the setting up
of a department locally distinct from the other
offices of government. But it appears more reason-
able to assign this change to a time of regular
organization than to a date like that when William
Longchamp fled from England and left the
Chancery, so far as we can see, without any direct-
ing officer.

The withdrawal of the chancellor from the
Exchequer was not only, as is well known,
of decisive importance for the history of the

Historical Exhibition, 1887, Excliequer (King's Remein-

i. 174, 1888. brancer) an enrolment of

1 The charter rolls them- seven charters dated on 17

selves are not preserved and 18 June. This is printed

before July 1199 ; but there by sir Thomas Duffus Hardy

exists among the Miscel- in the introduction to the

laneous Records of the Rotuli Chartarum, p. xl.

VIII LATER CHANGES 189

Chancery ; ^ it also led to a remarkable shifting of
the centre of gravity at the Exchequer. That board
had been constituted on the principle that the king
should have control of the financial administration
by means of his own secretary, the chancellor,
assisted by his clerk and writer. Now the chancellor
was gone, and his clerk, so far from being a re-
presentative of the Chancery, became one of
the chief officers of the Exchequer, and in course
of time, as chancellor of the Exchequer, its virtual
head. The writer of the chancellor's roll was
designed to act as a check upon the writer of the
great roll ; but the two officials became colleagues
in the Pipe Office. The control of the Exchequer
by the Chancery ceased to exist. Its place was
taken by the two remembrancers, in origin
confidential servants whom the king deputed to
watch the accounts : they became instead officers
of the Exchequer, and, so far as the work of detail
and routine was concerned, they executed most
of the duties which had once belonged to the
treasurer. As the treasurer ceased more and
more to act in matters of finance, the chancellor
of the Exchequer rose to a position of still greater
power, but it was in poUcy and chief supervision
rather than in routine that his authority was
exerted.
The treasurer's clerk, whose business was

1 See sir W. R. Anson, The Law and Custom of the Con-
stitution, ii. part ii. 255.

190 THE EXCHEQUER AND KING'S COURT viii

confined to the Receipt, became the under- treasurer,
and his post was usually held by the chancellor
of the Exchequer, who thus secured practical
supremacy in both departments. The external
control too of the Treasury of Receipt, which had
once intermittently existed, was given up. In the
twelfth century the king had entrusted its audit
to men of high rank in his Court : ^ by the
beginning of the fourteenth the duty was left to
an official of the Treasury, the tally-writer,^ who
in course of time acquired the title of auditor of
the Receipt of the Exchequer.^ A new system
of external audit had to be created in modern
times.* Perhaps the last link which had connected
the Exchequer with the king's Court was destroyed
when the duty of the marshal to take oaths from
accountants was handed over to the cursitor
baron of the Exchequer.

1 Cum a rege vel mandato I do not here speak of the
regis a magnis regni compotus auditors of foreign accounts
a thesaurario et camerariis or of imprests because they
regni totius receptae suscipitur : belong to the internal reor-
Dialogus i. 5 p. 183 ; cf. i. i ganization of the Exchequer
p. 172. It was for this reason which lies outside my subject,
that the writs of Liberate and 3 j^ 1527, according to
the tallies of combustion were W. H. Black, appendix ii to
preserved : ibid., i. 6 pp. 188, the 4th Report of the Deputy-
192. See Round, The Com- Keeper of the Public Records,
mune of London, pp. 77 ff. 1843, p. 179.

2 Madox xxiv. 11 pp. 737 f * Compare above, pp. 9 f.

INDEX

Abacus, The, 43, 4411.2, 45-5 3 »
56 f.

Abailard, Peter, 53.

Abbo of Fleury, 46, 47 n. 2.

Accounts at the Exchequer,
different sorts of, 127 f. ;
form of the account of the
farm of the shire, 131 ff. ;
stages in the render of, 1 37 f . ;
the account on the roll,
ch. vii.

Accounts, public. Commis-
sioners for auditing, ion.

Adelard of Bath, 51-53, 56 f. ;
cf. 44 n. 2, 50.

Agard or Agarde, Arthur, 6 n. 2,
15, 16.

Agardus, see Algarus.

Aids, 128, 171.

Alexander, bishop of Lincoln,

54.
Algarus, bishop of Coutances,

55n-2.
Alienation of royal land ; see

Terrae datae.
Al Khuwarezmi, Mohammad

ibn Musa (Algoritmi), 44^3,

53.
Amercements, 169 ff.
Anglo-Saxon laws, 21 n. 2.
Anselm of Laon, 53, 56.
Approvers, 162 f.
Archer, T. A., 54 n. 2.
Arithmetic, 42 f .
Assarts, 167.

Assay, 75-78, no, 148, 173-
Auditor of the Receipt of the

Exchequer, 10, 190 ; see

Tally-writer.
Aureus, 85.

Bale, John, bishop of Ossory,
4f.

Barons of the Exchequer, 102 f.,
117, 139, 141, 143, 146, 147,
174, 177 ff., 183 f. ; cursitor
baron, 190.

Bernard the king's writer, 123 f.

Bernehnus, 47.

Bezant, 85, 88.

Bigelow, Melville M., i38n. 2.

Black Book of the Exchequer,
The, 5, 6n. I, 13.

Black Book of the Exchequer,
The Little, 13 f., 15, 96.

Blank payment, 30-33, 60-66 ;
see Assay : automatic blanch-
ing, 32, 158 ff., 164, 173.

Boethius, 42, 46, 47 n. i, 52.

Boroughs, accounts of, 127,

135. 155. 157, 172.
Bower thane (burj)egn), 22 ff.
Brigham, Nicholas, 4.
Brown, Thomas ; see Thomas.
Brunner, H., 68 n. 2.
Bubnov, N., 46; cf. 43n. i,

47 n. I.

Calculator, 109 f.

Chamber, The, 24, 94, 97,
106.

Chamberlain, 22-26, 35 f., 97,
99 ; the two chamberlains,
25 f., 72-75, 107, 113 ; lands
held by, 35 f.; emoluments
of their deputies, 80, 82 ; the
of&ces abolished, 90 f. See
William Mauduit ; Herbert ;
Geoffrey of Clinton.

Chancellor, 96, 104 f., 1 1 1 n. i,
1851, 187 ff. See Raginbold ;
Roger, bishop of SaUsbury;
Ralph; Geoffrey, bishop of
Durham ; Richard, son of
Roger ; Geoffrey, son of

i9«

INDEX

Henry II ; William of Long-
champ ; Eustace, bishop of
Ely ; Hubert Walter.

Chancellor's clerk, iii, 114 i.,
143, 161, 171, 189.

Chancellor's roll, the writer of
the, 105, 112, 189.

Chancellor of the Exchequer ;
see Chancellor's clerk.

Chancery, 94, 184-189; cf. 16.

Chapel, The king's, 79, 94, 96,
98, 124.

Chaplains, 25, 94, 96.

Cheque, 89, 90.

Coke, lord chief justice sir
Edward, 5.

Common pleas, 179-183.

Comptroller, 9 n. 3 ; comptroller
and auditor-general, 9.

Computate, Writs of, 113 f .

Constable, 97, 105 £f. ; his
clerk, 115.

Constitutio domus Regis, 14,
94-99, no, 122.

Corpus comitatus, 163.

Cotton, sir Robert, 16.

Court, The king's, judicature
of, 174-183 ; rolls of, 187.

Currency ; see Money.

Custodia, 127 f., 135.

Danegeld, 125, 128, 169, 171.
Davis, H. W. C, 133 n. 3.
Decimal system, 42, 44, 45.
Delisle, Leopold, 18, 58.
Dialogus de Scaccario, ^-^f 9-

13, 19 f., and passim.
Dica, a tally, 98.
Domesday Book, 27-31, 60

f. ; kept in the Treasury,

36, 61.
Donum comitatus, 125, 169,

171.
Ducat, 85 f.

Eadred, king, 24 f .

Easter, conventional date of,

II n. I.
Escheats, 167.
Eschecs (scacci), chess, 10 1.
Euclid, 42, 53.
Eustace, bishop of Ely, 185.
Exchequer, the, ch. iii, v ; 33,

34n.i, 39, 40 n. I, 57, 133,
189 f. ; meaning of the word,
100 f. ; its principle, 40,
56, 109 f. ; possibly derived
from Laon, 56 f. ; its sup-
posed Norman origin, 57-60
(cf. 65 f.) ; question of Sici-
lian influence, 66 f . ; descrip-
tion of, loi f. ; sessions of,
137 f., 141 f. ; the king pre-
sent at, 99 ; emoluments of
officers of, 122 ff. ; their
privileges and exemptions,
125 f. ; the science of, 103,
177 ; Norman terminology of
69 ; pleas held at, 39 f., 174-
182. See Barons.

Exchequer chamber (thalamus
secretorum), 178.

Exchequer, Lower ; see Trea-
sury of Receipt.

Exchequer pound, 75.

Exchequer, Records of the, 15.

Exchequer year, The, 8, 152 f.

Farm of one day or night, 28 ff.
Farm of the shire, 128-136,

155-165.
Fines, 169 ff., 176 ; feet of,

182 : final concords, 175 n. i,

181 f.
Firma ; see Farm.
Fleet prison, 108.
I Foil, 89.
! Forel (forulus), 73* 74. 79»

j Forests, 167, 168, 171.
Freeman, E. A., 21 f.
Fusor ; see Melter.

Geoffrey of Clinton, 39, 97,
Geoffrey, bishop of Durham,

18511.3.
Geoffrey, son of Henry II,

185 n. 2.
Gerbert, pope Silvester II, 43

n.i, 46 f.
Gervase of Tilbury, 5, 6n. i.
Gilbert of La Porree, 53.
Giraldus Cambrensis, 136.
Gisulf the writer, 123 f.
Glanvill, Ranulf, 180, 187.
Gneist, Rudolf von, 68 and n. 2.

INDEX

193

Guibert of Nogent, 5511.2.
Guilds, 127, 163.

Hakewill, William, i6n. i, 170
n.i.

Hale, lord chief justice sir Mat-
thew, 6, 16 f., 31, 3211. 5.

Haskins, C. H., 50, 5811.3, 67 ^
95, ii8n. I.

Helinand, bishop of Laon, 54.

Henry I, king, 37, 39, 95, 125,
185 n. 3.

Henry II, king, 4, 117, 129,
I36f., 144, T^ni-

Henry III, king, 121.

Henry the treasurer, 23, 25, 35,

Herbert the chamberlain, 37 n. 3.
Heriger, abbot of Lobbes, 46,

47 n. 2.
Herman of Reichenau, 47.
Herman of Toumay, 54 n. 3, 55

n.2.
Hincmar, archbishop of

Rheims, 22, 25n. i.
Hoarder, steward (hordere,

cellerarius), 21 ff.
Holmes, George, 11.
Honours, accounts of , 127, 135,

i55> 172.
Household, The king's, under

Henry I, 95-99-
Hubert Walter, archbishop of

Canterbury, 1 86 ff.
Hugh of Buckland, 49 f .
Hunter, Joseph, 2, 18, 153 f.

Ink, supplied by the sacrist of

Westminster, 79.
Inquest of sheriffs, 129.

Jenkinsoiij^C. Hilary, 92.
Jewry, E^hequer of the, 187

n.4.
John, bishop of Lisieux, 58 f.
John, bishop of S6es, 59.
John of Seville, or of Luna,

44 n.2.
Indicia, ordeals, 162.
Justices itinerant, 144 f., 168-

171, 175, 177, 179 f., 181 f.
Justiciar, 99 ; president at the

Exchequer, 103 f., 176, 187.

1376

lustitiae, sentences, 157, 162.

Keeper of the king's seal, 7

and n. 5, 105, iii, 187.
Kemble, J. M., 22 f.
Laon, The school of, 53-56.
Larson, L. M., 23 n. 5.
Liberate, Writs of, 113 f .
Liebermann, Felix, 6 n.4, 19.

Madox, Thomas, 2, 17 f., 106,
186 (cf. 6 n.2).

Maitland, F. W., 3, 69.

Mark of silver, 82, 87 ; of gold,
^Z. 88.

Marshal, 98, 107 f., 113 f., 190.

Marshalsea, 108.

Melter of the Exchequer, 73,
T7, 80 f. ; his wages, 81, 82,
and serjeanty, 81 n.4.

Memoranda roUs, 1 20 ff. (cf. 141).

Money in use, 82 ; reckoned by
weight, 75 f., 82 f. ; value of
French money, 83, 85.

Murdrum, 125, 171.

Nicomachus, 42.

Nigel or Neal, bishop of Ely,
7, 54, 57, 125.

Norgate, Miss K., 117 n.2.

Norman currency, 65, 68 n.2;
Exchequer, 57 ff., 68 n. 2,
1 30 ; terminology of the
EngUsh Exchequer, 69.

Normandy, silver exported to,
77 n.2 (cf. 72).

Numero ; see Tale.

Obolus, a halfpenny, 84 ; coun-
ters so called, 84 n.2.

Ockam, 5, 6n. i.

Ockham, Nicholas, 5.

Ounce of silver, 82 ; of gold, 83.

Ovid, The poem De Vetula at-
tributed to, loi n.2.

Palgrave, sir Francis, 37 n. 3.

Parow, professor, 19, 114.

Payment in kind, 62 f.

Pell, 73.

PeUs, Clerk of the, 73 f.

Penny, silver, 82 ff. ; cf. 75-78,
I %7, 88.
O

194

INDEX

Pensum, ad ; see Weight.
Perdono, Writs of, 113 f .
Pesour ; see Weigher.
Pipe, meaning of , 1 50 f . ; clerk

and comptroller of the, 113,

189.
Pipe Rolls, ch. vii ; i f., 18, 1 12,

114, 129-133, 139, 145, 149.
Poitiers, archdeacon of ; see

Richard of Ilchester.
Pound of 12 ounces, 82, 84,

^■j f . ; the Exchequer pound,

75-
Profer, the, at the Exchequer,

137.
Prynne, William, 6, i6, i/on. i.
Purprestures, encroachments,

128, 166 f.

Queen's gold, 16, 170.

Raginbold canceler, Rainbald
of Cirencester (Raegnbold
preost), 25 n.2.

Rail thane (hraegel J)egn, cubi-
cularius, camerarius), 22-25.

Ralph of Laon, 47, 51, 53.

Ralph the chancellor, 54.

Recautum, counter-tally or foil,
89.

Receipt ; see Treasury.

Receipt roll, j^.

Red Book of the Exchequer, 5,
6n. I, 14, 15, 96; see Swer-
ford, Alexander.

Remembrancers, 1 19-122, 143
n.2, 189.

Richard Belmeis or Beaumes,
bishop of London, 34 n. 2, 39
(cf. 6n, 2).

Richard of Ilchester, arch-
deacon of Poitiers and bishop
of Winchester, 1 1 2 , 1 1 6 ff. , 1 43 .

Richard, son of Nigel or Neal,
bishop of London, 6-8, 123 ;
author of the Dialogus de
Scaccario, 3, 8-10 ; his tra-
dition about payments in
kind, 27 ; his error about
blank farm, 60 f .

Richard, son of bishop Roger,
chancellor, 7.

Robert of Evreux, 58 n. 3.

Robert, keeper of the seal, 59,
96, no f.

Robert of Selby, chancellor of
Sicily, 118.

Robinson, J. Armitage, -i^j, 38.

Roger, bishop of Salisbury, 7,
31, 34 n.2, 59, 62, 64 f., 68.

Roll, the chancellor's, 105, in,
113 ; the exannual roU, 144
n. I : the great roll ; see
Pipe Rolls; its writer, 113,
139 ; tax roll (rotulus exac-
torius), 131, 173 ; the trea-
surer's receipt roll, 73.

Rolls, under Henry I, 37 f.,
153 f.; how filed, I52n. i;
charter rolls, 188 ; justices'
rolls, 117, 145, 171, 187;
remembrancers' rolls, 120 £f.

Round, J. Horace, 15 n.2, 19,
25 n.2, 3711.3, 40 n. I, 58, 96
n. 3, 133 n. I.

Rutland (Rhuddlan), so-called
statute of, 144 n. I .

Salter, H. E., 50 n.2.

Scaccarium ; see Exchequer.

Scalam, payment ad, 32 f., 6^.

Scriptorii, Magister, 96, 1 10 f.

Scutage, 125, 128, 167, 169, 171.

Seal, The king's, 104 f., in ;
see also Keeper.

Selden, John, 6 n.2.

Serjeanty, lands in, held by
officials, 35, 81, 123.

Serlo, bishop of Lisieux, 58.

Sheriff, ii4ff. ; his summons,
138-143 ; excuses for non-
attendance, 146 ff. ; his ac-
count, ch. vi, vii ; his settled
allowances, 139 f., 155 fif. ;
his casual allowances, 139 f.,
160-163 ; punishment of, in
default, 107 f.

Shilling, 75-78, 85, 87 f. ; not
a coin, 8 1 .

Sicily, English relations to, 66 f .,
118 f.

Simon, apparently of Rutland,
48, 50.

Solidus, 85.

Spelman, sir Henry, 6.

Stapleton, Thomas, 18, 58, 65.

INDEX

195

Stephen, king, 133.

Sterling (esterlin), 83.

Stevenson, W. H., 45 n. i.

Stock, 89.

Stubbs, William, 11 f., 18 f.,

21 f., 31, 66.
Summ of the account, 137 f.,

142, 154-173.
Summons of the Exchequer,

138-143-
Swerford, Alexander, arch-
deacon of Salop, 6, 14, 130.

Tale, payment by, 31 f., 75,
no, 164.

Talent, 85.

Tallage, 169, 171.

TaUies, 85-93 (cf. 74, 79, 98,
105, 109, 140, 142) ; abo-
lished, 90 f . ; the memoranda
tally, 92 f . ; the tally of
conibustion, 92, 173, 190 n.i ;
payment at the, 33-35.

Tally-cutter, 109.

Tally-wTiter, 190.

Tellers of the Exchequer, y^,

7Sy 80, 82.

Templars, knights, alms to the,

Terrae datae, 133-137, 158 £f.,
167.

Thesaurus, 70 ff.

Thomas le Brun, or Brown, 67 ^
116, 118 ff., 122 ; his clerk at
the Receipt, 74 ; his writer at
the Exchequer, 116, 120, 143.

Thurstin the clerk, 124.

Treasurer, 21-26, 72, 97, 107,
112, 113 f., 139, 149; his
emolument, 97, 98 ; lands
held by, 23, 25, 35 ; his clerk,
7h 75 (cf. 80, 82), 139, 141,

189 f . ; the writer of his
roll, 113, 189. See Henry;
Herbert ; Geoffrey of Clin-
ton ; Nigel, bishop of Ely ;
Richard, son of Nigel, bishop
of London ; William of Ely.

Treasury, ch. ii, iv ; kept at
Winchester, 35, 40 n. i, 70 ff. ;
Treasury of Receipt, 71 f. ;
abohshed, 91 ; audit of the,

190 ; officers of the, 72-75,

78 f. ; their emoluments,
80 flf. ; pleas held in the, 34
n. 2, z^, 17^.

Turchillus compotista, 48 fif.

Turner, G. J., 19, 131 n.2.

Under-treasurer ; see Trea-
surer's clerk.
Usher of the Receipt, 78 f ., 80,82.
Ushers, 98.

Vice-chancellor, in.
View of the account, 137 f., 140,
141.

Waldric, bishop of Laon, 54 f.

Wardrobe, The, 24.

Watchman, 98.

Watchman of the Treasury, 79,
80, 82.

Weigher of the Exchequer, 7-^,
76, 80 f. ; his wages, 81, 82,
and serjeanty, 81 n. 4.

Weight, payment by, 3 1 f ., 63 f .

Westminster, The Exchequer
usually held at, 71 ; the
sacrist of the abbey, 79.

William I, king, 183 n. i.

William of Champeaux, 53.

William of Corbeil, archbishop
of Canterbury, 54, 55 n.2.

William of Ely', 130.

WiUiam of Longchamp, bishop
of Ely, 185, 186, 188.

William Mauduit, 35 (cf. 97).

William R., possibly bishop of
Sjrracuse, 48, 50. '

William of Sainte Mere I'^glise,
bishop of London, 106 n. 2.

Winchester, The Treasury at,
35, 40 n. 1, 70 ff. (cf. 79) ; mint
at, 65 ; officials of the Trea-
sury and Exchequer estab-
lished at or near, 23, 35 f., 123 ;
ThomasBrown's house at, 1 1 9.

Winchester, bishop of ; see
Richard of Ilchester.

Wintoniensis, Liber, 23.

Writs, 37 f., 39, 104, 105 f., Ill,
113, 114, 138-143, 160 ff.

Zero, 43 f., 51.

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